American Front
by militaryhistory
Summary: Supposedly, Voldemort sent representatives to the United States during the Second Wizarding War. However, we've never been told what the results of their efforts were. Canon-compliant.
1. Chapter 1

Edd Gibbon was thoroughly miserable. He really didn't know why the Dark Lord had sent him, Travers, and Dolohov to America. Surely they could just gather in more volunteers from the East, instead of coming all the way over here?

And why did he have to be one sent to the South? It felt like he was taking a bath whenever he stepped outside, and he could feel the suspicious eyes of the locals on him as he walked down the street.

But he was at his destination, and he winced slightly as he walked into the Magicshine Bar. He hated what the Americans called "country" music. But he would endure it. This was one of the main gathering places for wizards in this region, and the Death Eaters' main contact in the MACUSA had assured them that they would find plenty of volunteers for the cause here.

He looked around, concealing his disgust. It was all so...garish. He would never come to a place like this had he any choice in the matter. The beer would be cold, the music detestable, and the inhabitants uncouth.

No matter. He had a job to do, and so he suppressed his feelings and took a seat at the bar.

"What'll you have?" The barman asked. "I got Bud, Coors, and Miller in a can," Gibbon suppressed a shudder, "and you can see what's on tap. I got some foreign stuff if yer lookin' for a taste a' home."

His head snapped up and he looked at the grinning barman.

"How...?"

"Y'ain't from around here, that's plain as day," the barman said, and Gibbon looked around and silently cursed as he saw that nearly all the wizards here were dressed like the local muggles, albeit with a little more flair and fancier hats. His own garb stood out badly.

"An' I've been overseas. You look like a Brit. Am I right?"

"Yes." So much for being subtle. He'd never live this down.

"Now that gets me t' wondering," the man said absently, "'bout why a Brit would be coming in here. 'Specially in these times, with that Voldemort feller come back."

"Could I have that beer?" He asked. "It's a thirsty tale."

The barman grinned. "Have an Amstel," he said, bringing up a bottle. "And start talking."

He took a pull and nearly spat it out. What was this, horse urine? He swallowed, though, and started talking.

"Yeah, I'm here because of the Dark Lord," he started, not noticing the way the barman's eyes had gone flat when he gave him a title. "He makes things uncomfortable for his enemies. It's a bit unhealthy to be one of them."

"I can imagine so," the barman replied. "He's got quite a reputation over here."

Ah, so the Dark Lord's fame had spread. Excellent. He wouldn't have to go over all that then. He could go right to why he was here.

"So you know all about him, then?"

"Yeah," someone said from over by the music machine. "Wants to get rid of any wizards 'thout wizard parents, then take over the No-Majs."

Gibbon nodded enthusiastically. "That's exactly it." He smiled. "And I'm here to tell you that you can join, if you want."

"Join? Why?" Asked somebody else.

"Britain is only the beginning! Once we destroy the mudbloods in our country we'll be able to help you get rid of...yours..."

It was at that point that Gibbon realized that the temperature in the room had become wintry and absolutely silent, aside from the music, and his voice trailed off as he looked around the room.

The barman spoke, then, in a voice colder than the North Sea. "Y' seem t' be confused. Let me 'splain to you."

He pointed to four men sitting in a booth who bore a family resemblance to each other. "The Gist cousins, the male ones anyway. Half-bloods."

He pointed again, to a table where a man and woman were glaring at Gibbon. "Tucker and Sally Donnel. Tucker's a No-Maj, like Sally's parents."

He pointed to a woman sitting at the other end of the bar. "Over there, you have Caroline Wilson. Half-blood."

He grinned like a wolf. "As am I."

Gibbon felt his knees start to shake.

The barman gave him a look that mixed pity and utter contempt, heavy on the contempt. "No one cares about Rappaport's law except those Yankees up in New York and Boston. You thought that 'cause our No-Maj neighbors were stupid about race that we'd be like them, somehow?"

He snorted. "That, and once you get out of New England No-Majs tend to be a lot less weird about magic. Boys, get him out of here. Don't rough him up too bad."

As he went flying out the door ten seconds later, he found himself wondering if Dolohov or Travers were having better luck.

* * *

William Pilsudski grumbled a bit as he stumped through the halls of the MBI's headquarters in New York.

Working for the Magical Bureau of Investigation had its perks. Dealing with his superiors was not on the list, especially when it was Finley Norwalk IV.

Britain was finally officially acknowledging that Voldemort was back, something the MACUSA had known for months. Europe was divided on the issue, and the rest of the world didn't seem to care much at all.

Truth be told, he wouldn't care much either, were it not for two messages that had crossed his desk at the New Orleans field office. The first one had been official, a report from Alabama where a Death Eater had come asking for volunteers to help Voldemort take over Britain. The locals had given him short shrift, though there were some wand trash who might take him up on it. The second had come from a friend of his at the Boston office. Two men known to be Death Eaters had been seen going into and out of the houses of some of Boston's oldest families.

His friend wasn't sure what their reception had been like—the old families were not as forthright as his fellow backcountrymen—but the indications were that Voldemort and his lunatics were trying to recruit here, which would create a lot of trouble even if they weren't successful.

So what did Norwalk want him to do?

Norwalk wanted him to focus his efforts on the smuggling of illegal magic items. When he arrived at Norwalk's office, his assistant, a pretty witch named Belinda Tenson, gave him a sympathetic look as she buzzed the office.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Pilsudski is here to see you now."

"Send him in, send him in."

"Yes sir."

When William walked in, he was reminded of the other reasons he disliked Norwalk. The supercilious air, the nasal twang, and the lean face all produced a stereotypical Yankee patrician—the kind that had dominated the MACUSA since its beginning, and whose grip had only started to loosen in the past century.

"Mr. Pilsudski," the older wizard said. "Sit, please. We have much to talk about."

William looked at him skeptically. "I would like to know why you called me up from New Orleans."

The patrician coughed. "Yes. I was wondering if you had received any...odd messages lately."

Ah-ha. Norwalk wanted to know if someone was telling tales out of school, as Mad-eye had put it when they worked together on a creature-smuggling case that had been abruptly shuttered when it started implicating members of certain families.

Well, too bad.

"Can't say as I have, sir," he replied, deliberately thickening his Tennessee accent. The Pilsudskis had immigrated to MACUSA territory in 1971, and had assimilated with a vengeance. Outside of New England, what stigma remained to No-Maj-borns was held by the older generation.

Within New England...memories were long. Very long.

"Pity," Norwalk said. "But no matter. What of this incident in Alabama?"

"It's troubling. We already knew Voldemort was back, but he didn't try recruiting outside of Europe last time around, as best as I can tell."

"Do you think he'll find many willing to help him?" Norwalk asked. William resisted the urge to frown. The question was asked rather less anxiously than he would have, in Norwalk's position.

"A few. But not many."

Norwalk sighed. "A pity. Ah well. Have you gathered anything new about the smuggling?"

"Precious little. Ludo Bagman's disappearance threw most of the Transatlantic smuggling into limbo. They're still sorting out who owes what to who." He paused. "Any leads on where he went off to?"

Norwalk shook his head. "No. There's been reports of him everywhere of course. But the goblins are tenacious. I plan to let them find him."

William shrugged. He wasn't sure if that was the attitude the head of the MBI should take, but he had a hard time caring much about what happened to the man. "We did pick up some evidence pointing to Mundungus Fletcher."

"Really? Fascinating. See if you can pursue that angle." Norwalk smiled unpleasantly. "I would like to see him behind bars."

Which was why, if they did end up arresting Fletcher, Norwalk wouldn't know about it until he was in the Woolworth building. The last time William had gotten near Fletcher Norwalk had been the one behind shutting down the investigation. Now he wanted Fletcher arrested.

That was the sort of change in attitude that got him thinking about why it would occur. He didn't like any of the answers he was coming up with.

"Of course," he replied.

Norwalk beamed. "Excellent. Do you have any questions?"

Several, William thought, but I'm not willing to ask you right now, because doing so would reveal far too much.

"No sir," he said aloud, "none at all."

* * *

When he came through the door of the MBI office in New Orleans, he must have still been annoyed from his meeting with Norwalk, because Mandy Flamberge, who went by that because Salamandra was just annoying, gave him one of her patented glares. This one was the "don't go biting people's heads off because of something somebody else did" look.

"Norwalk was his usual self?"

"Yep," he replied. "Now he wants us to go after Mundungus Fletcher." He snorted. "Now that he's more dangerous to the old families than useful."

That brought nods from all the corners of the room. Benjamin Roth was especially disgusted. His family was technically one of the old families, as they'd been in New Orleans since before the Great Scouring, which had never reached the French holdings in America.

However, because of that, the wizarding community in New Orleans, and those areas influenced by it more than New York or Boston, had always been at loggerheads with their northeastern brethren on Rappaport's Law, and the Roths had been firmly against it from the beginning.

Which was why Ben was still a field agent instead of heading a field office, like he should be.

"Do you think Fletcher knows something?" He asked.

"Probably. Like how those known Death Eaters made it here to the States. The boundaries are supposed to trip whenever anyone who isn't allowed to come in crosses, and Death Eaters definitely aren't."

There were nods at that. The Northeasterners had obstructed every attempt to broach the topic until Voldemort's disappearance, but once it looked like they were losing they finally agreed to declare the Death Eaters a terrorist organization. By law, members of terrorist organizations were not permitted to enter the boundaries of the United States, and there were spells that activated the moment someone crossed the MACUSA's borders who wasn't allowed to. No alarms had gone off when those three crossed, which meant someone had smuggled them in, and Fletcher knew how to do that.

"So we are going to try and find him?"

"Or at least find his contacts. We know that at least one of the Death Eaters is down here. The question is whether he was planning on going out through New Orleans, or if he was going to go west to try and recruit there once he finished in the South?"

"Good luck with that," Mandy said with a grin, and the others laughed. The overlap between the magical and no-Maj worlds in the Southwest was a constant irritation to the old northeastern families—especially because, particularly in California, the families were just as old themselves.

They might find more receptive audiences in the Northwest, however. Seattle's initial wizarding community had been mostly northeasterners looking to carve out a place for themselves, unlike that of Chicago.

That, however, wasn't his concern.

"Chantry, I need you to check around. See if this Ed Gibbon's been talking to any of the usual suspects."

Andrew Chantry, who rarely spoke much, nodded. The Chantrys had more than their share of ne'er do wells and shady characters in their family, but Andrew wasn't one of them. Norwalk could cluck about it all he wanted. William was happy to have him.

He frowned then, as a stray thought struck him from thinking about the Southwest. "Do we know if any Death Eaters went down to South America?" He asked. The wizards who'd come to North America from the south had mostly been interested in running their own lives. The ones who'd stayed in the old Iberian empires had been meddling with the no-Majs down there for centuries. They might be more receptive to Voldemort's ideas.

"Not that anyone's mentioned," Mandy replied.

"Right. I'll talk to some people. We might want to find out where else he's sent people. If the Mandarins or the Brahmins get involved..."

Everyone winced. China and India were the most powerful of the wizarding countries. That was a bit of an adjustment for First-World No-Majs to make, but Ben had explained it that it was because the events that had driven the rise of the West and the decline of the East, like the Scientific Revolution and the Manchu invasion of China, had had no equivalent in the wizarding world. And magic was actually pretty evenly distributed among the world's population. Which meant that the two most insular and hidebound wizarding governments were the most powerful. Fortunately, the internal politics of both were messy enough that they couldn't be bothered to flex their muscles. Insularity was a good thing.

"Flamberge, start looking at potential candidates for surveillance." She nodded. The kind of people who usually got recruited into this kind of mess were in the MBI's files already, for various reasons. As for the odd ones out, they would almost certainly be seen in the company of the others. And who knew? They might turn up a connection or two to the old families.

"Roth, see if you can get in touch with some people. Find out what you can."

He wasn't going to say it out loud, but Ben knew what he meant. Find out what the old families were planning, or if they were planning anything at all.

"I'll call some of the other field offices. Let's go."

And so they did, and he went quickly to his office. He knew who he needed to call, and it would best not be over official channels.

Fortunately, all of the field offices had their plans for unobserved communications. He picked up the phone and dialed the number for the Chicago office.

"Kessler here."

"It's Pilsudski. Usual spot for lunch? We should catch up about old friends."

"Yes. We should. See you there, save me a spot."

It wasn't surprising that he'd be late. Chicago was a busy place.

"Don't worry, see you there."

He hung up the phone and called the offices in Asheville and Reno. Roberts and Hinojosa were both available, and once he was done he turned to his correspondence box.

He fiddled with it a moment, then cracked it open. It was as he'd hoped-there was a letter in it from Mad-Eye.

He took his wand and tapped the seal, a special kind that, if touched by a wand it was not attuned to, would catch on fire and incinerate the message. Once it had finished unrolling, he read it carefully. Moody was definitely more paranoid than usual, and who could blame him? Being kidnapped, trapped in your own trunk, and impersonated by a Death Eater for nearly a year was unlikely to make you less so, after all.

Through all the roundabout comments, references to incidents that only they knew about, and two or three substitution ciphers, he found out several things. First, the Brits were utterly compromised. The only offices that weren't were the Aurors and those involved with Muggles.

Everywhere else had at least one Death Eater or sympathizer, perhaps more. He winced. He was fairly sure that he was in the same boat, except that even the MBI had been infiltrated.

Also, Voldemort was gathering allies from all over. Giants and werewolves, and volunteers from Durmstrang country. He grimaced.

The letter also mentioned that there were rumors that some of Voldemort's recruiters had gone further afield, and he sighed. He'd have to confirm that for Mad-eye, and he didn't want to give his friend even more bad news. Still, better to get bad news than be blindsided.

Also, it looked like Fletcher wasn't going to be crossing the pond anytime soon. Apparently Dumbledore had him doing something or other. Which was odd, because everyone knew that the man was not to be trusted.

He'd need to ask Mad-eye to talk to the man, then. So much to do.

The letter to Moody, though, could wait until he talked with the other MBI officers. He did some more paperwork, then went through his reports to see if a further pattern had developed. Apparently a fellow named Gibbon had been kicked out of a bar in Sweetwater when he tried to push for wizarding supremacy.

He looked at the man's description, then checked it against the incident in Alabama. One and the same.

So. He was probably going straight west, and the others probably were too. He was relieved to see that Sweetwater had been less than receptive—it was one of the bigger magical communities outside of the Northeast.

He looked at his clock. Almost noon. He set his door to "Out for lunch" then touched the one portkey his office permitted in or out.

Five seconds later, he was in a large bathroom in Denver. It was the sort of place a little weirdness didn't go much out of place. He quirked a smile. American wizards weren't nearly as flamboyant as Europeans, but there were always those little things that some just couldn't resist having.

He stepped out quickly. Pat's Diner was close by, but if he didn't claim a table soon there wouldn't be any left. It was also where the MBI heads who weren't sympathetic to the magical separatist or supremacist movements met to discuss their superiors and vent their displeasure with them. It was, after all, the purest coincidence that all of the MBI's directors had come from the New York and Boston field offices.

He secured a table for four and sat down just as Hinojosa came through the door, Kessler and Roberts not far behind him. The waitress took their orders and brought their drinks, and then they set to talking.

"Norwalk's acting squirrelly," Roberts said flatly. "Cagey, but erratic about it."

Kessler nodded. "We got a report from the Dakotas. There was a bar fight near the Black Hills. Guy who started it was from Eastern Europe, talking about wizarding supremacy."

William grinned. "I'll bet that went over well." There weren't a lot of witches and wizards in that area, just because there weren't a lot of people, but the ones that were there observed Rappaport's law even less than the Southerners did.

"Had the tar beaten out of him," Kessler replied casually. "Norwalk was on me to find who'd done it, so I sent Zizka. Who, of course, found that nobody there had any recollection of what happened."

They all grinned at that, and William talked about what had happened in Alabama and Texas.

Roberts frowned. "Why didn't I hear about something happening in my area? And Kessler, what about the eastern parts of your area?"

That was a fair question, and Kessler rubbed the back of his head. "He might have gotten lucky. I know the Purestrain over in West Virginia is the only place in the eastern part of the country where he could get a hearing outside of New England. Hinojosa?"

"There's one spot on the east side of Washington, near Spokane." He grimaced. "The Fourteen."

All of the men around the table grimaced as well. "You'd think they'd learn," William said with some disgust.

Hinojosa shrugged. "I'm just glad they're not all over California. I've had issues with anti-pureblood bigotry there, actually."

"Wait, what?" This was news to everyone at the table.

"Yes. Apparently purebloods are inherently inferior to half-bloods and No-Maj-borns because of inbreeding. In order to increase the genetic diversity of wizardkind, all marriage and childbearing by magical couples should be prohibited unless one is No-Maj-born."

William blinked. "What on God's green earth...?"

Hinojosa shrugged. "They're not wrong about the inbreeding. Look at Norwalk." Everyone snickered. "But Rappaport wasn't wrong about the dangers of getting too close to no-Majs."

That hit a bit close to home—but he had a point.

"Besides, replacing one form of idiocy with its mirror image isn't exactly a win. But, back to important things," Hinojosa continued. "We probably know where these gentlemen will be. They are members of a foreign terrorist organization, which means they are illegally present here." He smiled thinly. "What say we deport them?"

* * *

For the first time since he and the others had arrived in America, Gibbon and the others had an appreciative audience. It was, admittedly, not the sort of audience he would have normally wanted. Most of them had that down-and-out look common to those who weren't where they wanted to be in life, and none of them looked like they belonged anywhere better than this filthy establishment. Not his usual sort.

But they'd make good wand fodder.

"It's not time yet to take our rightful place," he continued, "to rule as we were born to. But soon, brothers and sisters, we will be able to complete—"

Every door and window in the place exploded inward. The fragments dropped to the floor almost immediately, and nearly a dozen men and women just...appeared in the room, wands out and ready.

Gibbon raised his hands slowly, as did Travers and Dolohov.

"What d'we have here?" A voice said in an accent very similar to the one the bartender at the magicshine had had, and he looked at a tow headed burly fellow striding through the front door next to a lean black man. "Three men who aren't supposed to be in the country. Whose arrival is recorded nowhere." He smiled unpleasantly. "Which means you are currently in violation of the law. And because none of you three are citizens of the United States, but are foreigners, we can simply boot you out of the country and have done. Or we can bring you to trial and have a lot of fuss about what y'all were doing here. Choose."

"We'll take the first one." Travers said almost before the American had finished talking.

"Your wands. Now." The American sounded disappointed, Gibbon thought as he slowly reached for his wand and took it out front-end first. The MBI was not known for being easy on potential threats. Or for laxness in enforcing its immigration and entry laws, likely because the laws themselves were so lax. All you had to do was just not be a serious criminal, deathly ill, or nutters.

As a result, no one had any sympathy for people who came in the wrong way. Gibbon was pretty sure that if he tried anything the man in front of him would kill him without hesitation and no one would care.

He handed over his wand very carefully.

So, he noted with some relief, did Travers and Dolohov. If one of them had decided to resist, he doubted that he would survive the resultant fight. And even if he did, he suspected the MBI would give him an actual jail sentence.

"Turn around," the man said, and once Gibbon had done so he continued with, "put your hands behind your back."

He did so, and as the shackles clicked into place he looked over at the other two, who were glaring balefully forward, an expression he permitted himself until the Americans turned them around and marched them out to the waiting prisoner transport carriage.

As they took off, he swore that there would be a reckoning for this, someday. When the Dark Lord had triumphed and cleansed Europe of all the mudbloods and blood traitors, America would be next. But for now, they would wait.

* * *

William's feelings were decidedly mixed as he sat down at his desk to write the apprehension report for the three Death Eaters. They had been able to catch them all, at least, and one of them had been fool enough to write down the itineraries for him and his fellows and leave it in a pocket. That would make figuring out where they'd received a warm reception easier—find places they'd been where there wasn't a report of a fight.

Of course, that didn't mean there hadn't been one, or that the Death Eaters might have noticed people becoming unfriendly before it came to brawling time, but it gave a good starting point.

On the other hand, the three terrorist recruiters had reached all the stops on their itineraries—presumably, anyway, since The Fourteen was the last place listed on all of them. That meant they'd been able to spread their message, and while there were few true believers in magical supremacy outside of New England, there was plenty of wand trash who would see the idea as a chance to get power.

Well, plenty might be pushing it, but since the entire population under the MACUSA's jurisdiction was around fifteen thousand people, any additions to the pro-Voldemort faction would be extremely bad.

Also, none of the three had spilled the beans about how they'd gotten into MACUSA territory. He suspected that if he'd and the others had had more time with them they might have gotten answers, but Norwalk had shown up within an hour of their arrival at the Woolworth building and taken charge, then quickly bundled the three off before the MBI had the chance to do more than search them and ask some quick questions.

Nothing suspicious there, no sir.

It was extremely frustrating.

There was a soft "ring-a-ling" sound, and he opened his correspondence box and smiled. They'd gotten the names of everyone who was at the Fourteen, and Kessler had put his best surveillance agent on Norwalk's tail. Unfortunately, Norwalk hadn't done anything incriminating, curse it. However, once he'd sent the three out through the Boston Port of Entry, he'd immediately gone to his family's house, and within the hour several persons who were connected to prominent magic supremacy sympathizers had arrived there and had a conference that had lasted until sunrise the next morning.

Hinojosa and Roberts were going to be extremely busy surveilling the Purestrain and the Fourteen, and Kessler and he were going to be busy covering for them. Because he knew what Norwalk was going to want them to focus on, and what he would want them to forget about.

And he and the others intended to do neither.

Of course, they'd have to be careful about it, but he didn't think that would be a problem. Norwalk would expect them to do as they were told, because that was what they had usually done.

Not this time. Not with the survival of one of the few magical powers that wasn't demented on the subject of No-Majs at stake. And if Britain should fall—it didn't take a genius to figure out that the Death Eaters and Durmstrangers would first bring down the Beauxbatons countries, then turn elsewhere.

America would eventually be on their target list. And if nothing else, should that day come, he wanted as few fifth columnists as possible in his country. Especially men like Finley Norwalk.

When he opened the box, he was somewhat surprised to find that there were actually two items in there. One was a letter from Moody. Apparently the trio had made it back to Britain, and not taken a detour down to South America.

He frowned for a moment, then made a note to send a letter to his Brazilian contacts. He'd worked with the Brazilian Conselho de Brujos a couple of times, and while they were disdainful of No-Majs, they also resented attempts to get them involved in anything outside of South America. They would not be pleased if Death Eaters were trying to drag them into a civil war.

And besides, it had been awhile since he wrote to Joao Figueroa.

The second item was what had caused him to smile, though. It was a complete dossier on Norwalk and his cronies, from the files the Roths kept. Ben had finally managed to talk his family into letting them out. This was going to make things…interesting.

**A/N: Yes, I am aware that in the Fantastic Beasts films there are multiple magical law enforcement agencies in the MACUSA, and that none of them are called the Magical Bureau of Investigation. However, since Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set in the 1920s and the HP books are set in the 1990s, it is entirely plausible that some renaming occurred in the course of seven decades.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

When he got the letter from Brazil the day after he sent his, he was rather surprised that the letter he'd sent had borne such quick fruit. Of course, the reason why was apparent as soon as he read it. The Brazilians had booted the ones sent there almost as soon as they'd entered.

However, they'd hopped on over to Argentina, where the reception had been less hostile, though still not cordial. That wasn't especially surprising, but it would have been nice to hear that they'd been kicked out there as well.

However, the investigations were proceeding apace. There was a bit more activity around the Fourteen and the Purestrain than usual, but nothing really suspicious. Well, except for the fact that Henry Cavendish had been seen in both places.

He grimaced. Cavendish was probably the most dangerous man in MACUSA territory. The Cavendishes were one of the oldest families in North America, and had had time to cultivate allies and influence everywhere. And Henry had dedicated his life to using that influence to turn the MACUSA towards taking over the whole country-and banning no-Maj-borns from learning magic.

He'd never come close to succeeding, of course. The New York Obscurus had done for any notion that no-Maj-borns could just be left to rot, and no one was willing to kill them outright.

He might have come off the loser then, but he'd gathered allies in the process, and ever since then he'd been setting things up as carefully as he could to keep out of trouble while still remaining visible.

And he'd done a good job of it, too, although despite the worries of some his initial base of support had never expanded beyond most of the Northeastern old families and wand trash. However, as long as he was alive, the magic and blood supremacy movement would live on in the MACUSA.

He sighed. He hated it when his suspicions were confirmed like that. He would have much preferred it if that raid on the Fourteen had cowed the blood-obsessed.

Oh well. There were still other matters to attend to, like looking for Fletcher. If they did catch him again, no plea bargaining unless he could prove he didn't know about those Death Eaters.

And that dossier on Norwalk had directly linked him to Cavendish, and to the woman who led the magical supremacists in the northwest, Morgana Fay-which, unsurprisingly, she'd named herself. Pretentious twits.

There was a knock on the door, and Andrew stepped in.

"There's some interesting talk in the underground." That was Andrew, straight to the point. "Says there's overseas work if you're willing to get your hands dirty."

That was unpleasant but hardly surprising. "Go on."

"Thing is, most know what it's about, and they don't want in. But the ones that do have a pretty bad rep."

William nodded. Among wizards, crime tended to jump straight from relatively tame stuff like carpet smuggling to mucking around with the dark arts and murder. Robbery, battery, and sexual assault were quite rare.

Well. Violent sexual assault was rare. Particularly strong love potions were less so. And those were lots of fun to sort out.

"Who?" he asked.

"Mark Gregson, Matilda Hutchinson, and Devon Burr that I know of."

William grunted. Those three would sign on for just about anything that involved violence. If it weren't for the fact that they were signing on with the Death Eaters, he'd say good riddance.

But they were, so he couldn't just leave it at that.

"I presume that no one's planning on doing anything about it?"

Andrew looked uncomfortable. "Not really. They just want to stay out of it, most of them. Plenty of folks don't have a problem with folk like those three putting an ocean between them and here."

William shrugged. Good enough for him. "If we see them anywhere near Norwalk, Cavendish, or Fay, we'll have a better idea of what's going on. If they disappear...well, we'll definitely know what's going on."

Andrew nodded, unhappily.

"Is there something wrong?"

"It's my cousin, Clearwater. I think he might be falling in with the Purestrain crew."

William winced. That had to be...unpleasant. and it would complicate things. Well, maybe.

"As I recall, you don't like him much. In fact, no one in your family does, except his mother, and I don't think y'all like her much, either." He paused. "If you want to be involved in this investigation, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be."

"Thank you sir," Chantry replied, his shoulders slumping a bit in relief.

There was another knock on the door.

"Who could that be?" He wondered.

It was Mandy.

"There's someone to see you, Will. Says Joao is a mutual friend."

Well that was interesting. He wondered if it was someone he knew.

He looked at Andrew. "Anything else I should know?"

"No, sir. Not that I can think of."

"Good," William replied, then stood and lowered his voice as he continued. "Like I said, don't worry about your cousin. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

The man nodded gratefully and walked out. William didn't bother to mention to him that he knew Andrew wouldn't betray them because of how he'd met his girlfriend. Specifically, he'd beaten the tar out of his cousin Clearwater when he tried to assault her.

As he left, the Brazilian entered. William recognized him. Sebastian Lorca was a good friend of Joao's, and was in favor of better relations with the no-Majs. And they'd saved each other's lives during that incident with the wizard who tried to set himself up as a god in the rainforest.

"William! My friend! How is life!?"

He had yet to meet a Brazilian who didn't speak in exclamations.

"It is good," he replied. His Portuguese was as bad as Sebastian's English. "Did Joao send you?"

"Yes! With a letter! It will explain things!"

Although Sebastian did take it to a much more stereotypical level than Joao did. Also, why was Joao using Sebastian as a courier, especially after having just sent a letter to him? He suspected the answer was in the letter, and he took it from Sebastian's hand and opened it.

He wasn't surprised by most of it, as it was basically an expansion on the other letter, until he got down to the bottom of the letter. South America's wizards had split along the lines of the old colonial empires. As a result, there were only seven wizarding governments south of the border. The Peruvians, who held everything between Bolivia and Venezuela, were much like the Brazilians. The La Platans in the south had a bit of Durmstrang influence, though. Guyana, French Guyana, and Suriname had each set up their own, as well.

Then there was Mexico and Central America. One might have expected the wizards of the Aztec and Inca empires to have been able to hold out when the Europeans arrived. Unfortunately, they had adopted the practices of the no-Majs around them, sacrificial rites involving humans included.

As a result, the other wizards had signed on with the Spanish when they came in, and they had fallen at the same time at the same time as their no-Maj fellows.

At any rate, the news from South America was what he expected. The Peruvians had made it very clear that if you went to Britain you weren't coming home, and the La Platans had done the same after some arm-twisting. The smaller countries had done the same.

That was as good as it was going to get, honestly. The next question was what Mexico was going to do.

But that was more Hinojosa's department.

Joao's letter kept going beyond that, though. Voldemort's agents had been kicked out quick from Brazil and Peru, but not from La Plata. They weren't recruiting for Britain, though, and no one knew what they were doing. That was new information.

He looked up at Sebastian. "Did Joao tell you anything else?"

"No."

William looked at the Brazilian. "Does Sebastian expect you back with a message from me?

"Yes."

"Good. Give me a few minutes, if you would."

* * *

A month later, he was not surprised when he walked into the office and saw Norwalk sitting in front of Mandy's desk, trying to chat her up. William wasn't sure why he tried—everyone with eyes to see knew that she had eyes only for Ben, and he returned the favor.

Of course, that excluded Norwalk, he thought sourly as he stepped inside, except for anything involving bureaucratic infighting. And that last thing, he suspected, was why he was here. He'd probably twigged to what the MBI field offices outside the Northeast were doing.

Well, no, probably not. He'd twigged to the fact that they were doing things that weren't normal. If he knew what was actually going on he wouldn't be here-he'd be getting his patrons in Congress to drop the hammer.

He smiled then. He wasn't bad at bureaucratic infighting himself, he just didn't spend as much time on it as Norwalk. And the others would help-after all, their careers were on the line too.

"Good morning, Finley," he said cheerfully as he walked up to Mandy's desk. "What brings you to New Orleans?"

"A word with you, Pilsudski. I have some questions to ask."

"About what?"

"I would prefer to discuss it on your office."

"Of course. Right this way."

Once they were both settled in, Norwalk got right down to business. "Why was one of your agents in Asheville, the day before yesterday?"

"The agent assigned to the area was sick, and we were having a slow day. I offered to help. Nothing more to it."

"What I find peculiar," Norwalk said absently, "is that it's almost never Hinojosa or Roberts sending their agents to cover for you and Kessler. It's always the other way around. I wonder why?"

Pilsudski shrugged. "Strange things happen sometimes. I'll suggest to Hinojosa and Roberts that they make sure no one's hexed or cursed their offices. Is there anything else?"

Norwalk looked stymied for a moment, though Pilsudski knew he wasn't. He was only about to make his next attack, and he wondered what he was working up to.

He didn't have to wait long. "Unfortunately," Norwalk said, "there's been an outbreak of Protracted Putrid in the Boston office. The New York office is having to extend itself to cover the territory. Asheville and Chicago will be able to cover for them. Can you cover for Asheville and Chicago?"

Pilsudski maintained his poker face while cursing inwardly. His people were already covering for Asheville, but having to cover Chicago's territory would stretch them thin.

It was a clever move on Norwalk's part, and he had little doubt that, once enough time had passed for the outbreak to have come and gone, the New York office would come down with something. And no one would be able to say a word about it who wanted to.

All he said was, "Of course, no problem. These things happen, and I'm sure the Boston office would do the same if we had such a problem." He was actually sure of the exact opposite, but one had to maintain the proprieties.

"Excellent!" Norwalk said, beaming. "Well, I must be going over to California to talk to Hinojosa. Thank you for the help. So long!" And with that, he left.

Once he was sure the New Englander had gone, he took a few minutes to quietly curse the man before he turned to figuring out how to deal with this mess.

He sighed. They were almost certainly going to have to cut back on their surveillance of the Fourteen and the Purestrain. And he knew those idiots were planning something. He just had no idea what.

He expected a somewhat gloomy next meeting at the diner. He knew he wouldn't be good company, at any rate.

* * *

As the new year passed, he and the others waged an increasingly intense bureaucratic battle to give themselves enough breathing room to do what they needed to do instead of what Norwalk and his patrons wanted them to do.

And they were pulling out every weapon they could. Mandatory training days. Inventories. The New York and Boston offices both called in sick over Christmas and New Years Day.

It was a mess. However, despite this, they were still able to continue the investigation in fits and starts, largely due to Andrew and the info he was getting from his aunt.

Of course, if her son found out that said aunt was informing on him to the MBI, there would be trouble, but since Andrew wasn't that fond of her, he wasn't that worried. Of course, the man was still being careful.

After all, lone intelligence sources were not to be wasted.

At any rate, things were getting interesting over in Britain. Voldemort was gathering strength, and people were starting to go missing. The Death Eaters he'd sent to La Plata were still there, as they were apparently acquiring stocks of potion ingredients that were easily to find there but difficult in Europe.

Of course, there were ways to deal with that, but that was being taken care of by Ben's family, who saw no reason to let Voldemort's crew get their mitts on the stuff. And they were selling at cost to the Order and the Beauxbatons countries, and everyone here in the States who wasn't a pureblood supremacist. There were times when it was good to know rich people. Especially when it was something that could best be solved with money.

Although he wanted to solve it by going down to La Plata and arresting or killing the Death Eater's agents. It would be a bad idea, but he really wanted those guys off the board.

However, the list of ingredients they'd been buying up had helped the Order foil an attack on Ottery St. Catchpole before it even started. Apparently nazcaweed was only good for a particular recipe for shapechanging. So that was something useful they'd done.

The intel they were gathering on the Voldythizers, as Mandy called them, wasn't encouraging. They weren't growing in numbers, but they were training, and it was MBI training they were getting.

That explained where at least some of the New York and Boston agents were going when they were "sick." There were a couple of them that he knew Norwalk wouldn't trust-David Fisher from the Boston office, and Melanie Patterson out of New York-but most of the rest of the Northeastern agents were at least sympathetic to mage supremacy. Their opinion of no-Maj-borns, however, was a little different from their British counterparts. Their preference would be to kidnap them at birth and raise them in magical society. Well, most of them thought that. Norwalk was more of a Death Eater.

At any rate, he thought as he looked at the others, it had been a very interesting few months. And from what Hinojosa was saying, it was about to get more interesting.

"So now those anti-pureblood extremists are getting involved," William said with a sigh. Now there's a complication we don't need."

"I know," Hinojosa sighed. "If they decide to hit the Fourteen it's going to cause no end of problems. And if they find where the pure bloods have been training...well."

Kessler, the youngest of the four, leaned forward. "Why would this be bad?"

Pilsudski was about to speak, but Hinojosa beat him to it. "Because whoever draws first blood is at a disadvantage," he said flatly. "You don't want to be the one who starts it. Then people decide you're the aggressor, and your allies go neutral and the neutrals become enemies."

Kessler leaned back and thought for a moment, then nodded. "Like what happened in Kentucky."

"What do you mean?" William asked. For all that his family had assimilated to the US quite well, he was much more familiar with Polish history than American.

"When the no-Majs had their Civil War, which we kept out of, Kentucky decided it wanted to be neutral."

William blinked. "How did they expect that to be respected?"

"Thing is, it was, for months. Until the Confederacy invaded in order to secure the Mississippi River against a Union advance southward. Kentucky then joined the Union."

William shook his head. American history was a strange beast. Then again, they'd never been so foolish as to establish a governing body that required a unanimous vote for everything, unlike Poland, so he supposed he had no room to talk.

"Which means that now you have to split your efforts." He grimaced. "Fortunately, Norwalk won't have a problem with us investigating them."

The others snorted laughter at that. Norwalk would be ecstatic. If they told him.

They almost certainly wouldn't. For one thing, he'd certainly leak the report. This Pilsudski wouldn't have had a problem with, except for the part where Norwalk and his patrons had made sure little to no information about the magical supremacists had made it into the papers.

Of course, then again, two could play the leaking game, and he looked over at Hinojosa, who nodded. They'd keep this quiet as long as possible. And once they couldn't, they'd make sure everything hit the papers.

And they meant EVERYTHING.

"All right," Pilsudski replied. "We'll consider New Mexico and Colorado part of our territory from now on."

Kessler nodded. "We'll take Wyoming and Eastern Montana. Don't worry."

William sighed. He hoped to someday work for people who he didn't have to sneak around in order to do his job. Hopefully, that day would be soon.

* * *

As winter shifted into spring, it was pretty obvious that things were beginning to slide out of control. William's contacts with the Radet, the Stag and the Sejm were reporting that a lot of their rabid pureblood supremacists were missing.

Most of them had been spotted in England. A few, however, had dropped completely off the map. Well, until today.

William cursed as he lowered the no-Maj made binoculars. "You were right, Andrew. This isn't good at all." The man teaching the Americans was named Joachim Trabant, and he was known to the Stag as having pureblood supremacist sympathies and was suspected of having engaged in some pretty serious crimes against no-Majs all over Europe.

And he had a very intimate knowledge of the Dark Arts. Damn Durmstrang and their cursed foolishness. And, unsurprisingly, Gregson, Hutchinson, and Burr were there, as was Cavendish.

"What now?" Andrew asked.

"Hanged if I know," William said in disgust. "This would probably turn some folks against the purebloods, but then they'd know we knew where one of their training camps is. Don't think it's worth it."

Andrew shook his head. "I don't get it. Why do all this?"

William shrugged. "Some of them probably think of it as a big adventure. The rest? Just the slime of humanity."

Andrew grimaced. "So what are we going to do?"

"I'm going to talk to Hauser."

The other man nodded. Dietrich Hauser was the head of German magical law enforcement, and did not want to repeat Grindelwald.

"And then I'm going to talk to Moody. This is starting to look a bit more coordinated than I would like. If Trabant showed up in Britain before coming here, then things aren't that bad. If they have people coming straight from Durmstrang country to here, though..."

That would mean they were working together over the borders, and that would make the odds for the Order even worse than they already knew they were. At least Scrimgeour seemed willing to actually do something, but from the letters Moody was sending it was obvious that he was doing things just to be seen to be doing things.

President Hartshorn seemed to just want a lid kept on things here and for the MACUSA to stay out of Europe's business. While William understood that, especially after the mess that had been the Great Wizarding War, it still seemed shortsighted to him.

Oh well. They didn't pay him to make those decisions. Then again, there were a lot of decisions he'd been making that he wasn't paid to make.

He shook his head. Enough woolgathering.

"Let's get out of here," he said, and Andrew nodded. They slipped and slid back down the slope of the ridge to where their brooms waited for them.

"What do you want me to do?" the other man asked as they mounted up.

"Go to Asheville and talk to Roberts. It's his jurisdiction, but tell him I recommended not attacking now."

"Right. I'll see you back in New Orleans."

As Andrew lofted to just above treetop level and began to make his way through the West Virginia hills towards North Carolina, William sighed. The word from Hinojosa was that the anti-purebloods hadn't grown in numbers any, but they were getting antsier.

And while the purebloods' numbers hadn't grown any, their training was getting better. It wasn't great, thankfully, since it was only two weekends a month, but it was still there.

He wondered, for a moment, what would happen in the summer.

* * *

Gibbon was extremely nervous as he pelted down the stars. Yes, it was a great honor to be the one to cast the Dark Mark from the top of the tower. But he was still alone and he wasn't entirely sure if the others would just up and leave him behind if he didn't join them before everyone in Hogwarts realized what had happened and came after them with blood in their eyes.

He knew the others would say that what happened to him in America had made him too concerned about weaklings and blood traitors, who were of course not as brave as those who held to the old ways. He didn't care—he wanted to kill them all, but he knew it wasn't going to be a walkover, no matter what that psycho Lestrange said, and—

Oblivion.

* * *

As it turned out, summer was when everything went straight to hell. First, the news arrived from England that Albus Dumbledore had been assassinated in Hogwarts by Death Eaters. Second, he received a letter from Shacklebolt that contained the news that Mad-eye was dead. He'd always figured the man would fall in the line of duty, but he'd hoped it wouldn't be at the beginning of what was coming.

And something was coming, that he knew. Mad-Eye's last letter hinted that the Death Eaters were plotting a coup of some kind or other, and that he thought it would succeed.

He'd wanted the MACUSA to prepare to take in refugees, and William had gone to Garrett Johnson, who ran Immigration and was one of his old housemates from Ilvermorney, to see what might be done about that. If nothing else, if something happened elsewhere he wanted to know what procedures were in place—and what the role of the MBI might be. After all, it would be a good way to slip in spies.

As it happened, there were no procedures.

They met in Asheville, at the Three Wands Tavern, where Johnson told him the bad news. "There's no plan for it," he said flatly. "Norwalk's patrons are making it very clear that they don't want any British no-Maj-borns coming here."

Of course they wouldn't.

"And Hartshorn is going along with this?"

Johnson leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Hartshorn has...certain issues."

Oh. That mess. "They're holding it over him?"

"Like a club."

"Damn it." Hartshorn had a lot of difficulty casting spells, these days, after he hit his head in a fall.

That was the kind of thing that could end his career if it became widespread knowledge, though he doubted it would. However, Hartshorn was a bit of a coward. He wouldn't risk it.

"And I suppose that includes the kids, too."

"Yes." Johnson looked very unhappy, and William didn't blame him. His office would be the one denying them entry.

Then he spoke. "It's going to be like the '70s, isn't it?"

"Worse, Garrett. Far worse."

Johnson sighed. "We'll do what we can. But there's only so far we can bend the rules before someone notices."

* * *

Then, in the last week of July, things fell apart faster than anyone had anticipated. Scrimgeour was assassinated, no one knew how, and some schmuck named Thicknesse put in his place.

And then the laws started coming down. Pilsudski's parents had both been in Poland during the war, and he'd heard the stories of what the Germans had done. At least Voldemort couldn't force people to carry passes.

Still, though, what he was doing was bad enough. No no-Maj-borns were allowed to attend Hogwarts. All such who were adults were to turn in their wands until they were cleared of "stealing magic," presumably from squibs.

He estimated that they were about as likely to be cleared of the charges as he was to fly to the moon. Also, new laws were being passed regarding the status of non-human magic users—laws which, remarkably enough, affected neither werewolves nor giants.

It was, of course, purely coincidental that those were only groups who mostly backed the Death Eaters, though why was beyond him. Everyone considered both to be nuisances, but Voldemort wanted only humans to have magic.

Then again, werewolves were humans when they weren't wolves, and there were half-giants among wizards, so perhaps they counted?

No matter.

The Roths pushed to extend the same rules for no-Maj-borns born in Britain that there were for Durmstrang country. The Norwalks and their cronies blocked the proposal.

They hadn't, unfortunately, taken the fatal step of insinuating that there might be something to the charges. If nothing else, the math didn't work. There were far too few squibs to account for all the no-Maj-borns. Instead, they'd opined that it would be better if they went to Beauxbatons. Which might be true, but they should at least have the option of coming here.

They had even implied that perhaps it was time to end the program for no-Maj-borns from Durmstrang country. That had drawn down universal rancor, even from people who usually favored the old families.

However, it was very plain that there would be no British children at Ilvermorney this year, though at least no one had proposed preventing immigration from Britain. Had the blood supremacists been stronger, though, he had little doubt they would have tried it.

However, the Roths were still pushing for letting the no-Maj-borns in, which was why he was here talking with Ben.

"What are your parents trying to do?" William asked him over a beer in a bar well off Bourbon Street. "You know that the Congress will never go for it."

Ben shook his head. "Of course. The fools. But it's keeping attention on the situation, and the old families don't want that. My parents intend to force them to a deal."

"A deal? What sort of deal?"

"An...informal sort of thing. They'll stop making a fuss over the refugees if the old families will send the Durmstrangers home and agree not to send their volunteers over to Britain."

"Can we trust them to hold to that deal?" Pilsudski asked.

"If they made it with you? No. With us? Yes. For all that they dislike us, we are still of the old families."

William found this doubtful—the nobles of his family's homeland had turned against each other often enough—but held his tongue. It would not prevent them from watching the volunteers, at any rate. He knew the Roths well enough for that.

* * *

Summer passed into fall, and it became apparent that the Norwalks had accepted the deal, for the Durmstrangers went missing and the Roths fell silent. More and more no-Maj-borns were leaving Britain one step ahead of the law, and Pilsudski was glad that the MACUSA followed the no-Majs in saying that the only crimes that were a bar to entry were crimes under American law.

He was still getting letters from Shacklebolt, though they were coming through Georges Foch, over in France. Apparently the direct line between Britain and America was being monitored somehow.

Things in Britain were getting worse. Smuggling people out was becoming more and more difficult, and there were rumors that the Death Eaters would start targeting the young no-Maj-borns. Such was only rumor, so far, but after the New York Obscurus no one was willing to let someone with magic go untutored. And if they could not be tutored, killing them was the only option. One Voldemort would gladly take.

They needed to end this war quickly, because he saw it. The massacre of the Innocents, repeated on an individual scale, from now until Voldemort's reign was ended.

As the other field office heads read the letter, he knew they saw it too. He spoke. "At least when my parents and I had to leave Poland y'all only had to get them past the Soviets. And that assumes we'll be able to get to them before Voldemort finds them."

"Do you think Norwalk's crew would go for this?" Hinojosa asked.

Pilsudski paused. "I don't know, but if they've been listening to Cavendish I imagine they might."

The others simply looked grim.

"So what do we do now?"

"Sane thing we've been doing. Norwalk's still trying to keep us busy, but he's been less aggressive about it lately."

Truth be told, it worried him not a little. He didn't like it when his enemies were quiet-it meant they were plotting something.

A thought struck him. Could it be that...No, of course not. That would be pure insanity, and he couldn't imagine anything more harmful to Norwalk and his ilk and their cause.

Well, he could, but that was the worst plausible thing they could do, and he put the thought out of his mind. They needed to focus on what Norwalk and company would actually do.

Of course, the question was what they could do. He wasn't sure, honestly. It was possible that they would try and launch a coup, but that would be kind of ridiculous. Even if every wizard and witch in the New York and Boston offices joined in, which he doubted, they'd still be outnumbered once the others came in.

And he was pretty sure that they wouldn't have a lot of support from the rest of the government, either. They might be getting desperate, though, which could explain what was going on in Britain. The old families were losing their grip on wizarding society, and a lot of them wanted to hold on.

In which case, though, why had they agreed to the Roths' deal? Did they plan to renege? It might be true that ordinarily an old family wouldn't break their word to another, but these were not ordinary times.

Hinojosa's voice broke into his musings. "What do you think, William?"

William took a moment to go back over what the others had been talking about, remembered, and shrugged.

"For the life of me, I don't know what they're up to," he replied, and explained his reasoning to the others, hiding only his wildest speculation.

One that Kessler brought up. "Could they be planning to attack Ilvermorney?"

The others looked at him aghast, but William came to his rescue. "I thought the same thing," he flatly. "But I thought it absurd, so I kept silent. But since two of us have thought of it, perhaps it is not so absurd after all."

"But why? What could they hope to gain by it?"

"What did those two idiots in Oklahoma City have to gain by bombing a federal building with a day care inside it?" Roberts asked.

"Did they know it was there, though?"

"They damn well should have if they didn't," Hinojosa snapped. William nodded. That had been drilled into them from day one in MBI training. You made sure no innocents were caught in the crossfire before you went in.

Well, unless the guy you were going after wouldn't let them get out of the crossfire. Then you went in and prayed that your aim was true and the perp wasn't a total psycho.

But even something like what had happened to the no-Majs in '93 would pale compared to a strike at Ilvermorney. That would be a deliberate targeting of children, not just an act of negligence.

Then again...a thought struck him. Could they really be that ruthless and that blind?

Yes. Yes they could.

"Suppose," he said quietly, "that the pureblood supremacists thought they would have a safe refuge to flee to once their work was done. Suppose they wanted to cripple us for the war they think they'll fight in ten or twenty years."

He looked around at the others. "What better way to do that than to strike at Ilvermorney, to kill our children and gather theirs to them for their journey to Britain?

"Do you really think they would do that?" Roberts asked.

"I would hope not, but there's little we can do about it right now," Hinojosa replied. "All we have is guesses and conjecture."

He paused. "I'll talk to the defense teachers at Ilvermorney, they're friends of mine. They won't be able to do much, but they should be able to strengthen the school's defenses without anyone noticing."

William nodded. Matthew O'Rourke, Irene Kovacs, and Josiah Wright had all been good fighters before they turned to teaching, and all of them had been at the school for a decade or more. If any knew how to defend the place it was them. Although he might ask Hinojosa if he could come along—it had been awhile since he'd seen Irene, and it would be nice to catch up.

"While they do that, we keep on watching the Purestrain and the Fourteen and the anti-purebloods and hope no one does anything stupid."

That, William thought, was a vain hope indeed. Looking at the others, they thought so too.


	3. Chapter 3

As spring wore on, it started to look more and more like the worst guesses were correct. The would-be Death Eaters were training in building assault tactics, room clearance techniques, and spells that could do a lot of damage at once.

In other words, they were planning an attack on some kind of structure, one with a lot of people in it, and they planned on killing a lot of people when they finally did it.

The problem, of course, was the same one they'd always had. Nothing these guys were doing was technically illegal, in and of itself. Pilsudski himself had done a little unofficial teaching a time or two dozen, though usually what he taught was more personal self-defense than any kind of team tactics. He had taught a couple of tactical courses, though, mostly as an unofficial way to get the militia some more people who understood such things.

However, first he'd checked with Hinojosa first to make sure none of his students were anti-pureblood radicals. He'd also made sure he could verify that none of them were pureblood supremacists or mage supremacists.

Once he knew who he needed to keep out, keeping them out actually wasn't that complicated. Tactical courses were dangerous, after all, so he didn't allow any outside gear besides wands. And made sure that all the participants went through a doorway with multiple anti-illusion wards. And had a lecture before the practical portion that went on for three hours without a break.

That that was thirty minutes longer than any recorded instance of polyjuice potion ever having worked was the purest coincidence. It had also been a good exercise in self-control for everyone, including him.

His bladder ached at the memory. But, the fact was that being imprudent wasn't a crime.

And, also, having terrible opinions wasn't a crime in the MACUSA, which was all to the good. After all, at one time opposing Rappaport's law had been considered a terrible opinion.

Now, theoretically, it might have been possible to at least put together said terrible opinions, said training, and the mess going on in Britain together to bring up the possibility that Norwalk and crew were going to break their deal with the Roths. Or convince Hathorne that there was a coup imminent, which might have gotten him off his cowardly behind.

Unfortunately, the only person Hathorne was listening to on the topic right now was...Norwalk. And Norwalk was telling him that everything was fine and that there was very definitely no pro-Death Eater force training on MACUSA soil.

And that was the line Hathorne was feeding everyone else. And everyone in a position of authority in New York was eating it up. Everyone outside of the Northeast knew what was going on, but no one paid attention to them.

The only good news was that he'd taken some time off—his first in nearly a year—and had gone to see Irene Kovacs, whose brother Thomas worked with Hinojosa. Her specialty was Charms and enchantments, and she had forgotten more about both than he knew.

As they walked the grounds, he asked her how things had been at Ilvermorney the past year.

"Tense," she replied with a look of distaste. "Unlike the British, none of our houses have pedigree requirements. All of them have no-Maj-borns and supremacists in them, although we have few of the latter, thank goodness."

William cleared his throat. "I take it the student body doesn't sympathize with the President?"

Kovacs nodded. "There's a few seniors who I'm pretty sure are planning to go over to Britain and join the Order as soon as they graduate."

"Could I speak with them while I'm here?" He asked. "That's...not a good idea, for reasons I don't want to have to explain twice."

Kovacs nodded. "Easy enough." She looked over at her familiar, a one-eyed barred owl. "Zizka, go to my office and send off a message to Mr. Hardee and his friends that I would like to see them there at 3:45."

The owl hooted and flew away. William looked quizzically at Kovacs. "Hardee? I don't recognize the name."

"Jonathan Hardee. No-maj-born. It's mostly them who want to go to Britain."

That didn't surprise him at all, though it would make talking them down from creating some issues more difficult. "How many of them are there?" He asked.

"Seven," she replied, "three of them from Durmstrang country." He wondered, for a moment, if any of them might be distant cousins.

"All of them good students, too, and I know Mr. Hardee wanted to join the MBI until this mess in Britain began."

That was all the background William needed, and Kovacs knew it. He thanked her, they continued walking about the school, and by the time it got close to three forty-five and they went back to her office, he was satisfied that the Defense faculty had upgraded the school's defenses extremely well, and that they would be able to direct them competently. He also thought that he would like to spend more time talking with Ms. Kovacs.

When they arrived at Kovacs's office, about five minutes beforehand, he was quite pleased to see that all seven of the students she'd mentioned were already there, waiting. That already brought them, and especially young Hardee, up a notch in his book.

Kovacs opened the door for everyone—it was, after all, her office—and he waved in the youngsters once she was clear of the door, and entered after, shutting and locking the door behind him. When they were all seated, Kovacs behind her desk, the students on various chairs and couches that had sprouted up, he took his place behind and to her right.

Kovacs leaned forward. "I asked you all here because Mr. Pilsudski is a friend of mine." She paused. "Who asked to speak with you when I told him about your plan to go to Britain once you graduated."

"What—"

"Why did you—"

"Quiet," Hardee growled in a thick southern accent. "Mr. Pilsudski is with the MBI, y'all."

They all looked at him, Pilsudski included.

"Why do you think that?" Kovacs asked.

"He looks like one, for one thing. For another, I saw y'all while you were walking around the castle. Twice. Both were in places that you don't normally go on the guided tour, but they are places that are fantastic choke points if you were trying to defend the school."

"You've thought about this, Mr. Hardee?" Pilsudski asked.

The young man shrugged. "It's something I do when I'm bored, sir. I try and figure what the best thing to do would be if someone attacked where I was at."

His voice went flat. "It's something I've done more often ever since Voldemort took over in Britain and no one's done squat about what he's doing. Past time someone did."

William looked at Hardee for a moment. Deciding to go to Britain had been no spur-of-the-moment decision on his part. He'd made this choice months ago after taking some time to think about it, and from his looks he'd been doing some physical conditioning work recently. If he asked the Defense teachers, he knew he'd find that the youngster had been asking a lot of extremely practical questions.

So he was going to do the kid the courtesy of taking him seriously.

"I know you want to go to Britain and help the Order," he began, "though you probably don't know how to get in contact with them. Probably the next step in whatever plan you had, right?"

"Yes sir."

"Okay, because here it is: you shouldn't go to Britain."

"Why not? Because we're kids?"

"No. My family came from Poland right after World War II. My father and mother were part of the Armia Krajowa, and were younger than you and your friends when they joined.

"No, it's because right now you need to stay here."

That had gotten their attention, and William gave them a quick sketch of the situation based on what he knew that wasn't classified, concluded with:

"Right now there's a tacit agreement. As long as no MACUSA volunteers go to the Order, there won't be any supremacists going to the Death Eaters from here either. If you seven go, it's open season—and they have a lot more ready volunteers than we do."

Hardee rubbed his chin. "Nuts. Hadn't thought of that. But, still'n'all, isn't there something we can do? Anything?" He was almost pleading, now.

"Yes. There is." They all looked at him expectantly. "Apply for the MBI the moment you graduate. Something tells me y'all have the scores for it, and we need people like you with us."

They all looked at each other and nodded.

"Good. In the meantime, Ms. Kovacs will doubtless want to discuss other matters with you further, like how you might be able to put yourselves to use protecting the school."

Hardee grinned wanly. "Can do, sir. But, sir, one thing. If we do this, if we stay, and some of those wand trash and pedigrees go to Britain—well, we'll be going there ourselves, lickety-split. Fair warning."

Pilsudski inclined his head as his estimate went up another notch. Honesty and an understanding of how that sort of agreement worked, and that there should be consequences if one party broke it. He thought Hardee would do well in the MBI.

Assuming, of course, that he didn't manage to get himself killed doing something heroic, but keeping younger agents alive was part of what older agents were for. Of course, he'd also have to keep the kid away from New York and Boston, but that wouldn't be too hard.

"Is there anything else you want to add, Mr. Pilsudski?" Kovacs broke in on him.

"Just one thing. Gentlemen and ladies, thank you." His eyes met each of the seven. "This means more to me than I hope you ever know."

He really, really hoped that they would never find themselves in his position. That would just be too much to take.

* * *

It was early May when it happened. It was late afternoon in New Orleans, which meant that the temperature was in the eighties with ninety percent humidity. He was thinking about how glad he was that magic had gotten central heating and air built into wizard buildings well before no-Maj ones, when the emergency message siren went off.

He immediately slammed down on the emergency button that would alert everyone in this office and the other three functional ones to the fact that something was going on, then opened the message box to reveal a hastily scribbled letter from Shacklebolt.

It made for grim reading. _Something's happened, I don't know what. Potter seems to have robbed Gringotts and gotten away with something, and now Hogwarts is in full revolt and all the Death Eaters are going there. So are we. I don't know if I should ask you to come. If you can, please hurry._

Pilsudski nodded and thought as fast as he could. This might be the big one. Break the Death Eaters at Hogwarts and it would all be over, at least for awhile.

But, then again, if it wasn't...

Another alarm klaxon went off, and the decision was made for him. Ilvermorney was under attack, and it and was probably going to be a doozy. He cursed and scribbled out a note.

_Can't come now. Ilvermorney under attack. Go with God_.

He dropped it in the box, hit send, grabbed his go bag, and was out the door of his office in jig time.

The others were already there, gearing up. Rifles were being slung, pistols were being checked, and weapons harnesses were going on. He was just glad they didn't have to wear no-Maj flak jackets.

And that, unlike no-Majs, they didn't have to carry lots of mags in order to have enough rounds for a serious firefight.

He unzipped the bag and started spreading out the contents on the nearest table. AR-10, fully loaded mag with three hundred rounds of .308 ammo. Had some jamming issues standard, but some magical enhancement to the recoil put that right as rain. That would be the last thing to go on. .40 SigSauer, also with a fully loaded mag, this one with only a hundred fifty rounds. Left thigh. Wand holster. Right thigh. The rifle had a slot for his wand, but he wouldn't be going in carrying a longarm.

The Aurors, he knew, looked at their American cousins like they were, as McGonagall put it, utterly daft. Old Mad-Eye had been one of the few who understood. If nothing else, having no-Maj weapons meant you could do the job without risking exposure as a magical.

Magical law enforcement everywhere else thought that the MBI, while it might take things a little too far, had the right idea. Then again, the Brits did have a weird snobbery about no-Maj tech. It was almost like they refused to use any that wasn't at least two decades behind the curve.

He didn't understand why. He'd seen creatures shrug off a dozen very powerful spells and then fall like a house of cards when somebody double-tapped them with a forty-five.

Of course, he'd also seen the reverse happen as well. Werewolves were no joke, especially ones that Fenrir Greyback thought were a little too psycho for his tastes. Those no-Maj cops hadn't stood a chance until he dropped in and threw some spells at the creature.

Bulletproof coat, thanks to magic, and also magic resistant, since it was made of Thunderbird skin. It was illegal to buy such, of course, but MACUSA asset forfeiture laws were...somewhat loose when it came to final disposal of certain illegal goods.

Nearly everyone in the MBI had some kind of protection, as a result. He only hoped that the Death Eater wannabes didn't have access to that kind of equipment. If they did...well, their job would be a lot harder.

Grenade bandolier, check. Frag grenades were basically useless in his line of work, but concussion and flashbang ones were very useful, especially for dealing with creatures that had sensitive ears.

Food and water bag, check. There were enough rations for a week in the thing, and it was the size of a runner's backpack. He loved magic so much.

Once that was on, he looked at the others. Ben had his Barrett slung across his back, and he and Mandy were holding each other tight. Andrew was doing a final check on his shotgun, which had slugs loaded for taking down every type of magical creature known to man.

William cleared his throat. "Ready?" He asked. They all nodded at him, as Ben and Mandy broke apart and readied their weapons.

Ilvermorney had numerous defenses against outside attack. One of them was that you couldn't apparate or portkey your way into the place. Well, unless you knew someone on the inside willing and able to make a portkey that bypassed the wards.

Which the members of the MBI who had stayed true did.

They all reached for the book in the middle of the table, and Pilsudski felt the twist as he passed into what he thought of as the between.

His feet hit the ground what might have been seconds or an eternity later, and his wand and his Sig were out almost before he really took in where he was. Yes, they were in the right place, the roof of the school, and he could see flashes as the other MBI offices came riding in.

He could hear the sounds of fighting already, though right now it seemed like the magical defenses were what was holding the attackers off, which wasn't surprising. He had little doubt that the staff and older students were trying to get the youngsters away before going out to fight themselves.

Unless...

Kovacs popped her head out of the roof hatch and frantically waved them over. The MBI teams went at a run, and once they got to where she was she gave them the rundown.

It wasn't good, but not as bad as it could have been. A few of the students had been suborned, but not many, and they'd jumped the gun to boot when they tried to bring down the school's defenses from the inside. Apparently young Hardee and his friends had caught wind of the plot—probably, Pilsudski thought, because the Death Eater sympathizers were so obvious about everything.

When those two things came together, the school had been alerted to the fact that something was going on, and as a result the entire student body was in the main dining hall when Norwalk's crew attacked.

That meant the evacuation had been much faster than it would have been otherwise, although apparently there'd been a dispute over whether the juniors and seniors were going to stay or not. At any rate, right now there were about thirty defenders, half teachers and half students, and everyone else was on the way out, including the traitors, who were not moving under their own power.

However, there were at least eighty attackers, and he wondered where they'd found so many. The Purestrain and the Fourteen and the wand trash and the MBI sympathizers together didn't number that many. Mercenaries—ding. That was what those Death Eaters had been doing in La Plata.

Well, this was going to be a very bad day. Fortunately, unlike their no-Maj counterparts, the MACUSA militia still consisted of all able persons between the ages of 18 and 80. Unfortunately, getting everyone to their muster points would take awhile.

And that assumed the call had been sent out. He knew he had sent it out for his region, and the others almost certainly had, but it was a dead certainty that neither the New York nor Boston offices had. Well, unless David and Melanie had managed to do something, but he suspected they were probably dead. A pang of grief and rush of anger struck him, but he pushed the former away for later and took control of the latter.

Hinojosa spoke. "The rest will be here in three hours. We only need to hold until then."

Three hours. That was doable. Although...

"Have they broken through the defenses yet?"

"Not yet, but soon."

That wasn't surprising. Magical defenses usually needed some kind of live backup, mostly because they tended to be...predictable. A little observation usually meant that you could spot the patterns, and once that was done you were set. Having someone living involved meant a chance to reset the patterns, but the defenders had been busy with the evacuation.

"Let's go then," he replied, and Hinojosa nodded.

"Yes. It's going to be a long night."

Pilsudski jumped into the hatch, and the rest of the New Orleans office was right behind him. While talking with Kovacs, he'd holstered the Sig, unslung the AR, and placed his wand in the holder that allowed him to carry his rifle at the ready while keeping his wand in contact with his hand.

He bent his knees as he hit the floor to absorb the impact and to lessen the noise. "Where are the others?" he asked.

"Still in the main dining hall. We've been waiting for you."

Well, that made things easier. They jogged over to the dining hall, where the others were waiting. He wasn't surprised to see Principal Cadwallader there, or the other two Defense teachers, but he was a little surprised to see every other teacher there.

The students who were there looked like they were all juniors and seniors, and he recognized everyone who'd been there in Kovacs's office that day, and a few others.

He stood there for a moment and then realized something. No one knew who was in charge here. Among the MBI, the four of them worked together, but Hinojosa was definitely the first among equals. Hardee was the leader among his friends. Cadwallader was the principal. But he knew he didn't have any experience with this. So who was in command?

Cadwallader broke the awkward silence. "I'm not trained for this kind of thing. You MBI types are. One of you should lead this defense."

William blinked. That was unexpected.

He looked at the other field office heads and inclined his head towards Hinojosa. The other two nodded. "Hinojosa. What's the plan?"

He looked at them for half a moment, then nodded acceptance. "Right. We split into four groups, based around each of the MBI field offices. Each team will have one of the Defense teachers with it. Principal Cadwallader, you're with me.

He looked at Hardee for a moment. "I don't know what to do with you and your friends," he admitted. "I don't want to take you into this, but you'll go in even if I tell you not to, won't you?"

Hardee and his friends didn't answer. They didn't need to. The looks on their faces, how they drew themselves up, and held their wands said more than enough.

"Right. Split yourselves into four groups. You do the same," he said to the teachers. "And follow orders when given and as they are given. Understood?"

"Yes sir," they all replied. Pilsudski hoped they did anyway. Going in with barely trained people wasn't much better than with no one, but these people knew the ground.

It took a few minutes that they couldn't afford, but they got themselves sorted out, and soon he was on his way to their first defensive position.

That was one good thing about Ilvermorney's teachers. They actually had defense plans for the school.

Of course, those plans hadn't taken this situation into account, but at least they'd had something to work with.

He considered his options as they moved down the hall. The students only had their wands, unfortunately, but since the Defense curriculum included firearms they would at least know what end the bullets came out of. Kovacs was with them, and she was loaded for bear, with a shotgun and semiautomatic pistol.

The other teachers were more of a mixed bag. Shane Parker, the history teacher, was as well-armed as Kovacs, while Magdalena Harkness, one of the Arithmancy teachers, and David Johnson, who taught Herbology, only had their wands. Horace Vandervoort, the Ancient Runes teacher, had his wand and a battleaxe.

Pilsudski wasn't sure about that, but if Norwalk's crew threw a monster at them it could be useful. The thing was magically enhanced to the max, at least.

He wished he knew a little more about how much training they all had, as well. Most students didn't take more than five years of Defense, and it was his opinion that junior and senior Defense were what you needed to be any good in a real fight.

To boot, none of the teachers had graduated Ilvermorney less than twenty years ago, and Harkness was in her seventies. He hoped that they'd kept up with the refresher courses offered to all MACUSA employees, because that was more than enough time to forget everything they'd been taught.

He had at least some idea of the quality of the training Norwalk's bunch had, and it didn't bode well. They'd only been doing it two weekends a month, but they'd been doing it for nearly two years. That was more than enough time to learn team tactics and such. And they'd been working together, and knew each other's quirks and strengths and weaknesses. He and his team didn't. He'd just have to hope that defending their home ground would make up for it.

They got to their position and he took a moment to look around. His team had drawn the main hallway of the west wing, towards which some portion of the attackers were coming. No one was sure how many there were, because they were destroying anything that even looked like it was a detection device.

However, according to Cadwallader at least a few had been killed by the magical defenses, and there were several at this location. He just needed to make sure he didn't position anyone on top of them. That would be bad.

He looked at Kovacs. "Where are the traps and such?"

She pointed them out, and he pointed people to where he wanted them to go. He would use Andrew, Mandy, and Kovacs to lead each team. Roth would be let loose on his own. He'd provide coordination and cover fire.

Fortunately, the original builders had been a paranoid bunch—understandable, after the Scouring—which meant that it was easy to find positions for everyone, and that the hall didn't have a lot of cover.

And then, once that was done, all that was left was the waiting.

This was the part that he always hated the most. The long moments before contact, when all you could do was wonder what would happen if your opponents knew you were there. Except he didn't feel different, like he usually did.

He smiled, then, as he realized what had been eating at him. Ever since they'd found out about Voldemort's return, he'd basically been in this state unconsciously.

Now two years of tension was about to end, and he fought the urge to laugh wildly. It wasn't hard, though. His Defense teachers and MBI instructors had all stressed self-control as the key to everything.

And the soft warning tone that sounded in his ear drove out every emotion except the ones he needed right now. Specifically, cold anger.

He took the rifle off safe.

A second warning tone sounded.

He tensed up.

The third and final one sounded.

He came to the kneeling and opened fire at the man who came into his sights.

He was one of the wand trash, because he dropped like a stone after only a second-long burst. That was one of the good things about combining no-Maj guns and magic. Recoil, the bane of automatic weapons, wasn't nearly as much of a problem for them as for no-Majs.

He rolled back behind the stanchion he was using for cover as a curse and several bullets whizzed by his head, and the boom of Roth's Barrett blasted through the din. He poked his head out to look at the situation and drew it back in quickly, then put his wand-and-rifle around the corner and fired off a short burst and a curse while he went through what he'd seen.

There had been, probably, about twenty or so attackers in the hallway before the ambush. He'd seen three, no, four bodies when he looked out, which meant they'd cut down the odds a little.

Still, they were outnumbered, and the firepower advantage was on the other side. Everyone down there had some kind of rifle, as the constant sound of bullets whizzing by indicated.

He wondered why they hadn't brought any sniper weapons for a moment, then decided it was probably because they hadn't figured they'd need them.

Well, that had been a mistake on their part. The sight lines in here weren't long enough for a Barrett with a scope, but Roth was using iron sights. And there were few things that could blow apart cover like a .50 cal round.

He went to the other side of his cover and popped out just as one of the mercenaries came out of cover. They both fired bullets and a curse, but though William was quicker, the South American had good protection and reflexes.

He dropped back behind what little cover he could, but then the hall suddenly filled with smoke, and he snarled when he realized what they'd done.

"Up and ready!" he yelled.

There were a couple of options that the attackers could choose, and he wished he knew who was in command over there. He would attack through the smoke and try to catch the defenders off-guard. On the other hand...

He heard crunching and grinding noises, and he cursed. "Down!" he yelled, as the smoke cleared away to reveal that the attackers had set up breastworks using the material in the hall. Sometimes magic's helpfulness was a pain.

Fortunately, everyone ducked before the attackers opened fire again. He was happy about this development. The longer they spent here, the less chance they'd have to cause real trouble before reinforcements got here.

Like, say, breaking through to the dining hall and managing to find the passage that the evacuees were going through. He was really glad that there were only four people who knew where that tunnel came out, and that those four were all on his side.

However, whittling this crew down would probably be a good idea...

Suddenly he heard a great crumbling noise, and he looked up to see what looked like half the ceiling coming down.

While he'd known that trap was part of Ilvermorney's defenses, he hadn't expected Kovacs to actually activate it, and apparently the attackers hadn't anticipated it at all, judging from the yelling and screaming that followed.

He got his weapons ready and looked to see what had happened.

Judging from the blood that he could see, several of the attackers hadn't managed to get out of the way in time. Others, however, had, and the fight was back on in a matter of seconds.

And that was also when it suddenly changed. A very large shape appeared in the hallway, which was barely large enough to a accommodate it, and roared.

A dragon. They had brought a dragon.

At least their coordination was lousy. If they'd sent in this thing with the attackers, they would have broken through. Instead, he and his just had to keep the wizards busy while Vandervoort and Roth killed the dragon.

Then again...nuts. They needed to kill the wizards before the dragon got in fire-breath range. That meant moving quickly. That meant casualties.

Then again, letting the dragon in range while there were still wizards would probably be even more so.

He remembered one of his parents' no-Maj friends talking about a place called New Market.

During their civil war, a battle had been fought there, and one side had been so desperate for soldiers that they had used teenage cadets from the local military academy. The commander had them as his last reserve.

At the climax of the battle, he'd been forced to commit them. "Put the boys in. And may God forgive me for the order."

That was how Pilsudski felt now.

"Roth, Vandervoort! Get the dragon. The rest of you follow me!" He shouted as he came out of cover and started down the stairs looking for a target as quick as he could.

He didn't stop to look and see if the others followed. He knew enough would start that the rest would follow after. And...there.

He fired a quick burst and a curse at the witch who'd just popped up. Caroline Finch, a thoroughly unpleasant woman in all respects, and one who preferred her armor magical rather than physical.

She took the shots in stride, which was no surprise, but this time the curse he'd fired wasn't aimed at harming a person. No, it shut down magical protection, just for a second, but a second was all he needed.

His second burst hammered her down.

By then he was almost at the stones that had fallen from the ceiling that the attackers were hiding behind, and he could hear guns firing and spells landing and people screaming, and he hoped that he hadn't just made a mistake.

He went over the top and dropped into a crouch just as a curse and a burst flew over his head from behind.

He turned and rolled at the same time, firing bullets and curses in the general direction of the attack and hoping that the ones that missed hit the wall instead of one of his people. When he came to a halt he saw that the man firing at him was the same South American he'd targeted earlier, and was very surprised when his chest exploded right as he squeezed the trigger.

The body fell away to reveal Kovacs, shotgun and wand in hand and looking angry enough to kill a Thunderbird with her bare hands. "Sweep right!" He called to her, and when she did she almost immediately sent two shots downrange followed by a spell. He much preferred his rifle—recoil on shotguns was just too much, and they couldn't carry as many rounds. Still, they carried quite a punch, as the scream of pain that came from that direction indicated.

He swept to his right and Kovacs' left, and he nearly pulled the trigger before he realized the two people coming towards him were Andrew and one of the students.

"On me and watch to your left!" He yelled before he turned back around and saw a wizard, wand trash by the look of him, about to get up. He sent a curse and a burst downrange, and he dropped like a stone.

Then he fell to the ground as something slammed into his back that felt like a sledgehammer. He'd been hit worse before, though, but as he rolled over he saw that the dragon, while it had several smoking patches in its hide, was still coming down the hall.

And he knew that shot had seriously weakened his defenses. He turned to see Diego Sanchez, from the Boston office, dueling with Kovacs, Andrew, and the student. One thing about Norwalk's bunch, they didn't know the meaning of quit.

He sent a spell in, one that Sanchez hadn't been ready for, followed by a long burst. That got his attention, and as he turned around Andrew put two slugs through him.

"Get back over the wall! Now!" William yelled, getting to his feet in order to follow his own order—one that was needless, since the others, now that they weren't fighting, had seen that the dragon was about to turn them all into ash.

They all scrambled over the wall just as the first jet of flame hit the floor about six feet behind him. He could feel the heat all down his back, and that gave him a little extra adrenaline to get over the wall just a little bit quicker.

Fortunately, everyone was smart enough to know that the wall was still too close to the dragon to stay, and the others were already on their way to their original positions. He followed, looking left and right to see if anyone was falling behind or if they were being followed by others.

They weren't, but he knew he didn't have everyone in sight, and he hoped it was just because of the smoke and dust that was already filling the hall, and not because they were down. There weren't a lot of wounded in this kind of fight, he thought as he jumped behind his original cover.

He looked over the cover just in time to see the dragon open its mouth, and he wondered where the fire would hit. Then he saw the dragon's head snap back, and he realized that Roth must have put a bullet in the creature's mouth. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to kill it immediately.

It was dead, it just didn't know it quite yet, and it lunged forward and its head started flailing about. Someone was going to get hurt or killed at this rate, and he opened his mouth to order a retreat when he saw Vandervoort charge, axe in hand.

He opened his mouth to tell him to stop, but the dragon's neck was already flying his way, and Vandervoort was already swinging.

Axe and neck met, and William Pilsudski experienced what happened when someone overloaded a weapon with magic and crashed it into a monster.


	4. Chapter 4

It was...explosive.

He never was entirely clear on just what happened, considering the sound and the fury and the fact that he hit the floor in order to avoid getting brained by a fragment, but when he got up and was able to look around Vandervoort was sprawled up against a wall, the axe was gone, and the dragon's head and most of its neck were on the floor, while a good portion of said neck was missing.

He also noticed that the dragon's body also now blocked most of the hall, and getting from one side to the other was going to be very difficult. In other words, there were now two different battlefields where there'd been just one.

That made things a bit more complicated, but he suspected that now was the best time to check around and see how many of his team were still alive. He took a quick scan of the area, and, satisfied that none of the attackers was on this side of the dragon, went to the left side of the hall first.

Andrew and Kovacs were both there, as were all of the students they'd had with them. Parker and Johnson were missing, though, everyone looked a bit the worse for wear, and no one was sure if Vandervoort would make it.

He told them to sit tight, keep watch, and see if they could help out the old man, and scurried over to the right. He found Mandy and Parker there, along with their students, but Harkness was dead and no one knew where Johnson was. He told them the same thing he told the others.

Then he went back to his original position and did the same. He wasn't moving from here until he thought all of the attackers on this side had been accounted for. He'd also asked for the kill count, and somewhere between fifteen and twenty of them were down.

He wished they had better communications, but electronics didn't work in Ilvermorney-apparently, magic and electricity tended to short each other out, as he'd found out in an incident where he'd had to haul somebody in who'd taken refuge near a transformer.

Someone poked their head up on the left side of the dragon's corpse, and whoever it was almost instantly went down in a hail of bullets and curses. Some of them were his.

That was another one down, but there were still several unknowns, and he didn't want to leave the hall uncovered—and, if he had to meet a threat, he'd be leaving Kovacs and Parker here with the students.

He didn't want to do that, but if he was going into a situation blind he wanted it to be with people whose reactions he knew as well as he knew his own. And he definitely wasn't taking students in.

Suddenly, a white shape appeared, and he recognized it as Hinojosa's Patronus just before it spoke. "They hit us with dragons. We made it, but they broke through Kessler's area. You need to get over there now."

Great. Nothing about how many of the attackers or defenders had survived, or if the dragon was still around. Just the kind of situation he wanted to be stumbling into.

But it was needful, and they still needed to hold on for at least another hour or more. At least he'd already figured out what he was going to do. "Andrew, Mandy, Ben! We're moving out. The rest of you stay here. Kovacs—"

"I'm coming with you."

"What."

"Remember, I know this school's defenses as well as anyone else. Shane and the students can hold down the fort here."

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. Irene was right, he thought, and he wondered for a moment why he'd just thought of her by her first name. There was time enough for that later, and he had other business to attend to.

Before Parker or the students could get a word in, William yelled "I'm not trying to keep you safe. Someone has to watch this hall and take care of Vandervoort, and I'd like some guns here. Parker, that means you're staying."

What he'd said wasn't quite a lie. But as much as it went against the grain, he'd much rather have Irene with him than Parker. Aside from knowing the school, he suspected she was in better practice than Parker was, being a Defense teacher.

He also wanted the students to have some adult supervision to make sure they didn't do something half-cocked and get themselves killed, but he wasn't about to tell them that. That would be the surest way to get involved in an argument they didn't have time for.

He looked over towards Parker. "Stay here unless told otherwise or you get hit hard. If you are, fall back on us. Understood?"

"Got it!" He heard Parker yell back.

"Right. Everyone ready? Move!"

Within fifteen seconds he and the others were moving back down the hall towards where Norwalk's crew had broken through. He didn't know how long the attackers had been pushing, but he was pretty sure it had been at least five or ten minutes.

That meant he was jogging with the safety off, though his trigger finger was on the side of the weapon. It was less than a minute before they heard the sounds of fighting. That wasn't especially good—

The mercenary who turned the corner opened his mouth to cry out, but William had always believed in being ready for what you couldn't see. He already had his rifle up, and he sent a burst and a curse downrange.

Apparently whatever fighting there'd been had weakened the mercenary's defenses, because he dropped like a stone, but there was no real way to mask the gunfire—silencing spells really weren't. Which meant his friends knew that they were about to get hit in the flank.

What they didn't know, however, was that William was packing grenades, and he came to a halt, grabbed a concussion grenade, and then threw it around the corner. If it had been an ordinary one, he might have been worried about enemies being outside the area of effect.

Instead, it had a few magical refinements to it. He could hear it ricochet—once, twice, then—the explosion and light were nearly indescribably loud and bright when it went off in the center of the room. Well, presumably the center.

He raised his rifle to his shoulder before he jumped around the corner, the others following. He didn't know if anyone had had time to duck and cover, but if they had he intended to be ready for them.

As it happened, there were three on their feet when he came around the corner, though they were still a little dazed from the explosion. He could tell that because they didn't open fire the moment his team came around the corner.

Instead, he and his had a precious eternity of two seconds to find what cover they could and go for it as fast as they could. It was still barely enough, though—he could feel the passage of the burst and curse meant for him in his hair.

No matter. He hadn't heard any of his team go down, and that was what mattered. Now he needed to finish this before the other attackers in here managed to recover. He looked over at Chantry and made a motion with his arms.

He rolled the grenade around the cover, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth. It wouldn't work perfectly, but it would work well enough for what he had to do.

The sound went beyond indescribable and straight into eardrum-shatteringly painful. He'd need some healing once this was done. And the light had seared through his eyelids. He hoped the others had noticed what he was doing and taken precautions, but right now he had work to do.

He stood and stepped around his cover and moved quickly to where the two wizards and witch had been standing and were now writhing on the floor. Keeping the rifle and wand in his right hand he fumblingly pulled his knife with his left, knelt, and got to work.

It only took him seconds, but he had to roll to cover again as Norwalk's crew started to come to their feet and start throwing spells and bullets around.

They were still dazed and confused, but he was too, at least a little bit, and he wondered if the others were—

He could barely hear a werewolf's howl echo in the hallway, and he wondered if Norwalk's crew had found some of those as well before he realized it was coming from the hallway he'd seen Hinojosa go down as they left.

He hit the floor when the half-dozen attackers in front of him dropped in a hail of bullets and magic, yelling "Pilsudski here!" as he did so. Once on the floor, he turned to where he could see in the directions that reinforcements weren't coming from.

And where several of the attackers still were, he realized at the same time as he realized that his present position was covered only in the one direction he didn't need cover from. Well, not once his friends knew who was here, anyway.

However, once Norwalk and company...

He rolled to the side as the bullet slammed into where he'd just been. Apparently someone on the other side had a Barrett. Wait, hold it nuts!

He rolled again just before the bullet landed six inches from him.

Two field offices. Two Barretts. That must have been how Norwalk had done it. One of his MBI cronies in charge of each team, with one team containing the bulk of them, including both snipers.

Which meant Norwalk was almost certainly...

A flash of light burst and a thunderclap sounded as two impossibly powerful spells slammed into each other, and William swallowed. Hinojosa and Norwalk were two of the most powerful wizards in the MACUSA, if not the most powerful, and something told him that remaining in the vicinity would be extremely unhealthy.

Unfortunately, letting Norwalk's crew run around would also be extremely unhealthy, so he was stuck here. He hoped that it was all MBI and teachers right now, because students really had no business being involved in this.

A burst and curse came his way, and he rolled forward to come to a knee and return fire, which was certainly unexpected since he felt stone fragments sting his backside from the rounds hitting the floor where he'd been. He sent one down in reply, but he was still out in the open, and he threw himself against an overturned table that was between him and the enemy.

Distantly, he heard what was probably Roth's Barrett firing behind him, and the reminder gave him just enough warning to move to one of the low partitions that divided the room before one of Norwalk's snipers—probably Florestan Claflin, he always did shoot a little high—put a bullet through the table right where he'd been.

There was going to be a sniper's duel, which would make things more interesting in all the wrong ways. At least if they shot at each other they weren't adding to his complications.

Although if Roth, Johnson, and Vilikainen lost the duel-he presumed that Sanchez was already dead—his complications would go up immeasurably. At least this cover was solid New England granite.

Still, he moved about a foot over before he raised himself to get his eyes and weapons over the wall to...there! He sent a burst and a curse towards someone less than fifty feet away who was taking aim at Hinojosa, and whoever it was crumpled to the floor.

He dropped down as he caught motion out of the corner of his eye just in time to avoid the shotgun blast. That had been a inferno shell, he thought, judging from the heat of it.

He then went towards where the round had come from and stood up. There was Frederico Alcazar, bringing his shotgun back down to fire it again. The man never did put enough effort into modifying his weapons. Burst and a curse, and he was down.

That was at least two of Norwalk's MBI crew down, he thought as he dropped behind the low wall again. Now if only he knew how many the others had killed, he'd have a much better idea of their chances, his mind continued as he moved back in the direction he'd come, still facing the enemy.

"Pilsudski!" He heard someone say behind him, and he stopped as Art Frasier, from the Asheville office, slid in behind him, presumably with his shotgun and wand ready.

"Sitrep?"

"FUBAR to hell and gone," Frasier said flatly. "Kessler and most of his office got wiped out, along with the teachers with him covering the retreat. Claflin and Depuy took out Sanchez, and at that point..." he shrugged. "They took out the dragon, though, in the process, at least that's what the students said."

That was something, at least. "What about you?"

"They sent the dragon first, and while we killed it we lost two of the teachers in the doing. Then we were holding them until we got Kessler's last message, and we had to fall back. We didn't lose anyone else during the retreat. We linked up with Hinojosa five minutes ago."

He heard a hailstorm of bullets and magic come their way, which indicated that there were far more of the attackers alive than he would have liked. Apparently they had decided that this was where they'd fight.

He looked at Frasier. "High or low?"

"Low."

"Let's do it then."

The fire slackened, and William stood while Frasier leaned around the side. There was a witch he recognized from the recon of the training camps but whose name he couldn't remember almost directly in his sights, and when he sent a burst and curse downrange he saw her head snap back as she dropped to the floor.

He saw a few of the other attackers fall of the corner of his eye, but he dropped back down before he got a good count. He did not want to end up like the witch he'd just killed.

He hadn't dropped so quickly that he couldn't tell that Norwalk's crew were heading for cover as well. If this became a drag-out fight, he could live with that until reinforcements arrived, but he wanted to end this.

If Norwalk's crew managed to run, they'd be hunting them for years. Or, worse, they'd run and join Voldemort over in Britain. No. This ended now.

He flinched as a particularly sharp exchange between Hinojosa and Norwalk lit up the room and sent out a wave of energy, then looked back behind him. He didn't see any .50 holes in anything, so the sniper's duel was either still going or had been won.

He had two grenades left, and he took a moment to check his rifle magazine. He still had over a hundred rounds in it, which was good, but right now he was wishing that he'd carried another mag. He did not want to have to go to the pistol.

He took a moment to see if Andrew, Mandy, or Irene were anywhere about. They weren't, but that was better than seeing any or all of them lying dead on the floor.

He looked at Frasier. "Go," he said, and the other man stood up while Pilsudski leaned around the side.

He didn't see a target, and he shifted his view to the left in time to see a wizard stagger back from Frasier's homing slug, and sent a few bullets and a curse downrange himself. Their target dropped like a stone.

Pilsudski slipped back just as a hail of bullets and magic tore through the area where he'd just been. He looked back over at Frasier, and was relieved to see that he wasn't injured.

He wished he knew how many of the defenders were still up, but that wasn't going to happen until the battle was over.

He poked his head up just in time to see a very large hole appear in one of the tables that an attacker had been using for cover. Apparently the sniper's duel was over, and his side had won.

He risked a quick look at where Hinojosa and Norwalk were dueling, and saw that there was no chance of adding anything to that fight. It was confused enough that unintentionally killing Hinojosa was more likely than not.

He ducked back down just as a burst and curse flew through the space where his head had been, and he looked to the right and saw Andrew slide behind one of the overturned couches.

"Where's Green?" He stage-whispered over to the other man.

"Back there, giving some covering fire," Andrew called back. "She'll be coming up in a few seconds."

"Right. Let's make sure she gets here."

He adjusted himself so that he wouldn't pop up exactly where he'd done so the last time. He hoped Mandy was watching for an opportunity.

"Now!"

The three of them stood up. Pilsudski swept his rifle in an arc, left to right, not the opposite way as MBI training dictated. Ever since he'd learned about Norwalk's treachery, he'd been training himself out of fighting the MBI way as much as possible—if nothing else, doing something other than what your opponents _knew _you were going to do would throw them off for that crucial half-second.

It was extremely unlikely that he'd actually take out anyone, of course, but that wasn't what covering fire was meant to do. It was meant to keep as many heads down as possible while someone was out in the open.

Another large hole appeared in some cover right where a wizard had ducked to avoid his bullets. He'd take that as a win, he thought as he dropped back behind the partition and looked over to see Mandy slide in next to Andrew.

Two rifles, two shotguns, and four wands. Yeah, they could make this work.

He took a moment and poked his head around the side of the partition. Cover...there, there, and there.

He looked over at Mandy and Andrew and gestured quickly. _There's cover directly ahead of you and cover directly ahead of us. We'll go first, on my signal. Frasier left, myself over._

Green signaled back. _Understood._

He turned to Frasier. "You got all that?" he asked quietly.

The other man nodded. Some might have been insulted by that, but Frasier understood that in a fight like this understanding exactly what you needed to do was vital.

William held up three fingers where the others could see them.

Three.

Two.

One.

Go.

Frasier ducked to the left, while he went over the top and used his momentum to push himself two steps forward before converting into a slide.

He tucked himself in behind the overturned couch right before Frasier did, as bullets and spells tore through where they'd been.

He took two seconds to catch his breath, then a few more to give Mandy and Andrew time to set up.

He looked at Frasier and nodded.

They both stood up and opened fire, though this time William let himself revert to his previous training and go from right to left. He wanted to keep heads down, but he didn't want to shoot Mandy or Andrew by mistake.

Finishing his arc, he ducked down, fairly certain that he hadn't hit anyone. He looked over at the overturned table that he was pretty sure the other two gone for, and sighed in relief when he saw they were still alive.

He turned to make sure that Frasier was still alive—he was—and took a moment to consider his options. There weren't that many. Fall back, stand and fight here, or move forward.

It made more sense to fight from here for now.

He turned and made some gestures, and Andrew and Mandy nodded. He turned to Frasier, who gave a thumbs-up.

All four came out of their cover and opened fire.

As he sent lead and magic downrange, Pilsudski scanned the area, and wasn't sure whether he liked what he saw. From the sound of things, Hinojosa and Norwalk were still going at it. There were also several of Norwalk's crew firing at someone off to his left, which meant that someone was still alive over there. Unfortunately, it also looked like the defenders were outnumbered, presently, at least right here.

He dropped back down behind the table and checked his rifle mag. Around a hundred rounds left. Not great, but still doable.

He wondered for a moment if it would be a good idea to try and get the students back here. No. He couldn't cast a communicating patronus, and they needed every wand they had right here. They just had to hold a little longer. That was all.

Of course, how long that would be was the next question. He thought it had been at least two hours since they got the alert, but he wasn't sure. Time had a weird tendency to stretch out and compress in combat.

Then a storm of fire broke around them and he realized what was coming on its heels.

"Get ready!" he yelled, and the moment the fire went slack he and others came out of cover and fired as fast as they could.

It wasn't a moment too soon. Half a dozen of Norwalk's crew were almost right on top of them, and he didn't even really have to aim. They seemed to be shocked that the defenders had come out of cover, and their moment of paralysis was deadly.

He managed to put ten rounds in a wizard's face just as he saw a spray of blood and brains fly across as Frasier put two shotgun rounds and a curse into the witch who was about to hit him with something unpleasant and then he was turning to take out the next wizard...

He felt himself flying through the air and wondered what it was that had caused that before remembering to tuck his chin in so he didn't hit head first. He noticed that he still had his rifle right before he slammed into something or other.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, and while it hurt he didn't feel anything that indicated a neck injury. He took a moment to try and move his legs and was relieved when they actually responded. What had happened?

It had been some kind of explosive spell, he saw as he looked at where he'd been, and it was the devil's own luck that it had hit behind Norwalk's bunch rather than his. But from the looks of things they were getting it together, and he still couldn't get up...

Spells and bullets started flying past him from behind, and the attackers scurried for cover as two more of them dropped to the floor for good. Who on earth could these reinforcements be?

Then he heard Parker call out "Stay low and don't do anything stupid!" and knew what had happened. The boys—and girls—had put themselves in, dammit. He managed to move his legs a little. He was not going to let them go alone.

He raised his rifle to his shoulder. It felt a lot heavier than it usually did, and now that his head was a bit clearer he knew that he was still shaken from the blast. Still, he was able to keep it steady as he aimed at an insufficiently cautious witch.

He ripped loose with a burst and a curse, but missed. Then the remaining cobwebs cleared from his head as he realized that he'd just called attention to himself and he was completely out in the open.

He felt strength come back into his limbs as he rolled to the side just barely ahead of the bullets and spells that crashed into where he'd just been sprawled. He turned the roll into a crab-scuttle that got him behind some cover, then poked his head took a moment to look around again.

Things weren't getting worse, but they weren't getting better. It looked like the students had shown up by themselves, dragging their teachers or whoever had been left with them along, and that had stopped Norwalk's breakout attempt dead. Now they were stalemated again.

Which was better for the defenders than for Norwalk, but there was the issue of the attackers running if they decided they couldn't win. Then he realized that was why Hinojosa had gotten into a duel with Norwalk.

Norwalk wouldn't want to run from a fight with Hinojosa, and as long as he was there his followers wouldn't run either. The key thing, of course, was to keep them busy enough that they wouldn't get the idea to interfere and whack Hinojosa.

He wondered how long it would be before the reinforcements got here. Surely by now? Oh well. Best to continue as though they weren't coming.

He poked his head up again in a different location and nodded. It looked like the students were at least sensible enough to know that advancing would be suicidal. At least thirty of Norwalk's crew were still alive, maybe more.

And...he didn't know how many of his fellow agents were still fighting, but out of the sixteen who'd come he doubted that more than half of them were still up. Nor did he know how many of the teachers were still fighting, or how many students, but hopefully most of them were still alive. Even so, attacking wasn't going to happen.

Victory, he suspected, was going to go to the side that had the most patience. He didn't think that it would be Norwalk's, since this whole plan had demonstrated extraordinarily bad judgment on his part, though he wondered if that murderous bastard Cavendish had been the prime mover behind this particular bit of madness.

He shook his head. That didn't matter right now. He already knew that the students could be somewhat hard to handle, and they were teenagers—impetuosity and poor judgment were hallmarks of that age. He could only hope that Hardee hadn't picked any hotheads and that their teachers had the kind of authority necessary to hold them back.

A thought struck him. Where was Irene? And Frasier? And Mandy and Andrew?

He poked his head out to see if he could spot them. No sign. He hoped they were alright, but he couldn't do much about it if they weren't.

He looked over towards where he'd been. Oh, good, Irene and Parker were both there, along with the students he'd left to watch the hallway. He wondered if Ben was still fighting for a moment before one of Norwalk's witches literally lost her head, with a wizard following suit.

That didn't necessarily mean he was still alive, but the probabilities were good.

He fired a couple of spells downrange, then sprinted over to where Parker was huddled.

"Did you bring them here, did they bring you, or did they tell you they were going unless you brought them?"

"That last one."

He grunted. "Good. I'd've had words for you after this if you'd decided to bring them all by your lonesome. Do you have any more idea about what's going on than I do?"

The other man shook his head. "No. We barely made it in here without losing anyone, so I was a bit busy. I've got two students covering the hallway. The others...well. I'm not sure what to do with them."

William nodded. "We'll hold here. Right now, the important thing is keeping Norwalk's crew from deciding to interfere with his duel with Hinojosa." He raised his voice. "Listen up. Reinforcements are on their way. Right now, we just need to keep these people pinned down and not let them kill us. Don't be stupid, and don't try and do something heroic."

They'd all done enough, as far as he was concerned. Just hold in place and...

A patronus showed up, one he recognized. It was a wolverine, and it belonged to Douglas Leinster, head of the militia. "Students safe. At front of school. Coming in."

That was...wait. He frowned for a moment. Something about that was giving him a twitch, the kind he had when there was something very important that he needed to figure out really quickly.

Irene gasped, and he looked over at her. "What?"

She swallowed. "If they're coming in from the front of the school, they're going to come down those two hallways. And push Norwalk right into us."

"How long do we have?"

"Depends on how fast they're moving, but we probably have four or five minutes until Norwalk's bastards realize what's happening."

William cursed.

That wasn't enough time to redeploy anyone from the other side of the room to this one, unless they realized what Kovacs had. And if they were as busy as he thought they were, judging from the sound of gunfire and spells, they probably weren't going to.

And, if they fell back down the hallway, it would leave the other defenders exposed on this side. Norwalk's crew would be sure to exploit that. And he had no idea where Frasier, Andrew, or Mandy were. He couldn't just leave them.

He cursed again. He hated not being able to take his own advice, and it wasn't even his fault that he couldn't.

Oh well.

He raised his voice again. "Listen careful. We're going to have every one of Norwalk's goons coming our way soon, four of them for every one of us."

That got everyone's attention. He even saw a little fear in the students' eyes, the ones he could see, anyway. That was good. It meant they might listen to him and stay alive.

"We have to keep the way closed long enough for the militia to get here. If we don't, and Norwalk and his crew get away, we'll be fighting them for years."

He looked around. "We're going to hit them twice. Myself, Kovacs, and Parker will stay here and hold them off as long as possible. Students, you'll fall back around the corner. When they break through, you'll be there to hammer them. With any luck, that'll shock them long enough to keep them from pushing forward. If they do, run. Understand?"

"Yes sir," they all said.

"Let's do this, then."

The students quickly scrambled back to the hallway, finally demonstrating some common sense. William didn't know where Ben was, but he knew he wasn't going to run, and was proven right when someone's arm they'd poked up to sling a blind spell flew off.

He poked his head around and saw a couple of people running up one of the hallways that Norwalk's crew had secured. The final part of the dance was about to start. He sighed. He'd rather hoped to see the end.

And...here they came. He'd wondered what it would take for them to abandon Norwalk. Apparently the prospect of being trapped here was the limit.

There were at least twenty of them, but even from here he could tell that they were on the edge. The only question was whether they'd panic into a charge or into a retreat when they realized that he and his were in their way.

Then he realized that the blow to the head had affected him more than he thought. The ones coming in from his left were moving helter-skelter, but the ones who'd been facing him were doing it proper, with good security.

A wizard's head disappeared in a cloud of red, and immediately the others opened fire on where they thought the bullet had come from. He couldn't see where they were aiming, but since most of the fire was going over his head he presumed it was somewhere behind him and over his head. He wondered if they were right.

When none of the others went down, that question was answered for him and them, and half moved forward to the next line of cover. He looked at Irene and mouthed, "next time." She nodded, and adjusted herself so she could move instantly.

The ones who'd moved opened fire, and the ones standing started moving themselves. William came out of cover and opened fire just in time to see Andrew and Mandy come out of nowhere and tear into the flank of the attackers.

Four of them went down in a matter of seconds, and for a brief moment William thought this might be what caused them to quit.

That happy thought died a painful death as the ones who'd been in full retreat, seeing only Andrew and Mandy, fired everything they had at them.

Mandy managed to duck in time.

Andrew didn't, and William Pilsudski snarled as he saw his friend die under half a dozen spells and who knew how many bullets. But he dropped down anyway, as the others turned in his direction.

He cursed as he pulled out his magazine, and snarled again when he saw that it was empty. Andrew Chantry had been a good man, and now he was dead. But so had Art Frasier, who was almost certainly dead, and the Chicago MBI field office, and all of the defenders who'd fallen this night.

He drew his wand from the rifle and his pistol from its holster. He looked at Kovacs, and saw that she had her wand in one hand and a pistol in the other.

Pistols and wands against at least a few rifles and shotguns and wands and who knew what else.

Then he heard someone cry out "Attack or die!" and he came out of cover to see the entire rest of the attackers swarming towards them, not even trying to take cover.

All three of them opened fire, but they were outnumbered at least ten to one, but then he saw the ones at the back falling in a hail of fire.

Then multiple somethings slammed into him, and everything went black.

* * *

Pilsudski floated in darkness. It was almost soothing, really, after the battering his sight and hearing had taken. He wondered if, were he a No-Maj, he would have taken permanent hearing loss from this fight.

Probably.

Why was he thinking? Why was he alive? He should be dead, like Art and Andrew and Irene and Mandy and...

He heard something. A voice, a female one, though it was faint enough that he didn't recognize it.

Then a male one. Stronger. He frowned. Yes. That was Ben. Was he still alive? He hoped so. Another female voice. Mandy? She'd survived? How?

Then another one. Irene? Irene!

His eyes flew open.

He recognized the ceiling. He'd seen it more than a few times while he was at Ilvermorney. The infirmary here wasn't quite the equal of St. Mungo's, but apparently it had been good enough to keep him alive.

He turned his head to the side. There was Ben, sitting there with Mandy, hands entwined, both looking a bit the worse for wear but...content. And there was the school's doctor, Increase Hartsuff, giving him a vaguely disapproving look.

Then he turned his head to the other side, and there was Irene. She looked like she'd just been relieved of an intense worry, and he hoped that it hadn't been on his account. He turned his head back to Ben and winced. That hurt.

"How long?" He asked, his voice croaking.

"Three days," Mandy said quietly. "By the morning after they knew you'd live, but when you hadn't woken up we started to get worried." She paused. "William..."

"How many?"

"William..." she paused.

Ben spoke. "The entire Chicago office. Art. And Andrew. You were the worst injured to survive. The teachers..." he winced. "Turns out Johnson died when the dragon fell on him, and you knew about Harkness."

William cursed himself silently as guilt flooded through him. He should have been better.

Ben continued, his voice heavy. "All the teachers with Kessler died, as did one each with Roberts and Hinojosa." He smiled wanly. "Vandervoort's already up and about, though."

That was nice. "The students?"

"All of ours are still alive. Thanks to you. But three others died. Hardee's pretty cut up over it."

William closed his eyes. He imagined that the kid would be. He'd have to talk with him.

"Did any of Norwalk's crew get away?" he asked, as he felt weariness overtake him.

"No, William," Ben replied as he slid back into the dark. "We got them all."

When he woke up again the next day, Irene was the only one there, and he managed to get the rest of the story out of her. He, Parker, and she had gone down at about the same time—it was just that she and Parker had gotten luckier on the shot placement than he had, and she'd gotten luckier than Parker had.

Thanks partially to their stand, the militia had torn into Norwalk's survivors like a Thunderbird through a cloud. Only two attackers had made it into the hallway, and the students there had taken them down.

And it was then that Hinojosa had cut loose. Ben told that part of the story. Once only Norwalk was still fighting, and his followers either dead or in custody, Hinojosa had gone in for the kill. And everyone knew who the better wizard was, except Norwalk.

It had all been over in fifteen seconds. And Norwalk was definitely dead. Hard not to be, what with missing the entire middle of his chest.

Right now, apparently, the MACUSA and all of the Americas were in...not turmoil, exactly, but there was quite a ruckus going on. Members of all of the old Northeastern families had been at Ilvermorney—one had actually been wiped out—and the mercenaries had been from all over Latin America.

Apparently the president had grown a spine since the old families had been put to rout. Or, since Hinojosa now headed the MBI, maybe he'd threatened Hartshorn into doing his job. Either way, he was going after the South Americans for not paying more careful attention to the recruiting going on inside their borders.

Frankly, what happened outside MACUSA territory didn't matter much to William. What mattered was that the survivors were singing like canaries, apparently.

That, and when Irene was around, he felt a lot better. And he suspected that she thought the same way about him.

There were going to be a lot of funerals to go to, though. But there were going to be a lot more that he had no intention of going to. And he'd be out of the infirmary in a few days.

All was not well. But it soon would be.


	5. Epilogue

William Pilsudski floated gently in the sky on broomback with eager anticipation. He'd been waiting for this day for a long time, ever since he'd found out who'd been backing Voldemort and Norwalk.

One of the heads of the old families had cracked under pressure, about a week after the battles of Ilvermorney and Hogwarts. There'd been multiple reasons for that, both fear and bitterness. Fear, because he didn't want to be executed. Bitterness, because Norwalk had launched the attack prematurely and on too little notice at their backers' behest.

Those backers, as it turned out, were a coalition of ministers of magic from countries covered by Durmstrang, who'd hoped to add Britain to their coalition and had ordered Norwalk to attack when he had in order to keep the MACUSA from intervening in Britain.

He was the only one who'd cracked and knew anything, however, which meant that they couldn't corroborate the information, and while Shacklebolt had agreed with Hinojosa that the info was good, neither Britain nor the MACUSA was in shape to do anything about it.

By the time the British had recovered enough from the war to consider dealing with the people behind it, however, the MBI had been busy dealing with increasing anti-pureblood sentiment, and time had cooled emotions and dulled memories.

Except, that is, for the defenders of the schools. Their memories came in their sleep. At least Pilsudski's did. He knew his wife's did. And the same was true of the Roths and young Hardee. But they hadn't pushed it—they knew that the Durmstrangers would eventually decide to march.

It had taken more than twenty years, but the Durmstrangers had finally decided to make their move. They, too, had lost heavily in the Second Wizarding War, and their influence had taken quite a beating.

But after the war, there'd been some emigration from Britain and the west of Europe to Durmstrang country, and a little bit from the MACUSA, William was sorry to say. That had given them a slight boost, and they'd recovered within the next decade and a half.

However, so had the MACUSA, though Britain was still feeling the aftereffects of fighting two rather costly civil wars in under a generation, and the Beauxbatons countries were simply humming along, having not been affected at all by the fighting. Russia didn't like them much, and China and India seemed to not care about what happened outside of Asia.

As a result, the balance of power was decisively tilted against the Durmstrangers, and for awhile, everyone thought that maybe the Blood Wars, as people had taken to calling them, were over. William had hoped so, but suspected they weren't. There was going to be at least one more, he'd been sure of it. The pureblood supremacists were not going to go gentle into the night.

Then, as the new millennium ended its second decade, everything started coming apart for Durmstrang. The Radet vor Magikern, Magierstag, and Cziarodziejsejm all announced that they were setting up their own school, and that anyone who wanted to could go there, and that any wizarding country that wanted to could send its students there.

Within two years, the only governments fully committed to Durmstrang were in the Balkans, and some of them were looking a little shaky, and enrollment had plunged to less than a quarter of what it had been before the announcement. In other words, the purebloods-only school was well on its way to becoming a nonentity.

He hadn't been surprised when the same warning signs that had preceded the last war came around. Durmstranger recruiters had gone out—and, unlike the last war, found barren soil. As it turned out, especially after most of the adherents to the movement had died or left and the MBI shredded the anti-purebloods, pureblood supremacy had gone by the wayside, and magical supremacy with it.

And that had made the Durmstrangers desperate. Which was why he was here right now, along with nearly the entire MBI, which he'd headed for seven years now, and a good portion of the MACUSA militia. The idiots were about to try and take over Britain, starting with Hogwarts and going from there.

It was a long shot, but it was the only shot they had—because the Russians weren't interested, and despite the Durmstrangers' best efforts the Brahmins and Mandarins had said "no dice," as had everyone else.

It was the kind of mad plan that would appeal to those anachronisms, and it could have been rough on the Brits if they'd managed to launch a surprise attack.

However, they hadn't. Word had gotten out. And that had caused a brief but fierce debate in the MACUSA about they were going to do about it. It had been brief because William had stalked into the sesssion and said flatly that if they didn't intervene officially, he and his had a lot of vacation time banked.

They'd voted to authorize intervention, which had indicated a truly astounding increase of good sense over the past two and a half decades. Which was why William was here, ready to end a war before it had really begun.

He looked over at Hardee, who looked grimly eager. He was one of the best of the newer generation, and he had a good head for tactics and the battlefield. Not as good as William's, yet, but still a good one.

"How d'you think they'll come in?"

Hardee frowned. "These guys? Least-time course from Durmstrang, so from the east. They won't try to be subtle, but just rely on speed and surprise."

William nodded. "Yes. They think we don't know they're coming, and they know that they have to strike quickly. They also think that if they strike hard enough that the Brits will fold, and we won't act."

He smiled. "Of course, they don't understand that the current leadership is a lot different than the people who were in charge last time around. More competent, a lot less complacent, and not hampered by the old families."

Hardee nodded, but William could tell the younger man didn't really understand what it had been like. Oh, he knew a little, for sure, but he hadn't had to deal with knowing what needed to be done, having the power to do it, and then being kept from doing so by your superiors because they were playing for the other team.

He hoped he never did.

"But what it means is that they're going to get multiple unpleasant surprises tonight. Well, unpleasant for them, anyway."

Hardee grinned, then, and William noticed his eyes flick over his shoulder. He turned to see his wife coming up behind him. "Everyone's ready," she said. "They're starting to get a little antsy."

William smiled at her. Irene Kovacs had agreed to become Irene Pilsudski three years after Ilvermorney, and he still wasn't entirely sure why, though he certainly wasn't complaining. "Can you blame them? This is the biggest fight in anyone's lifetime."

She nodded. Technically, there had been more people in total at Hogwarts, but most of those had been late arrivals, and casualties among the initial forces had been heavy enough that it made an appreciable difference. Here, the full force of both sides would be present at the beginning.

Including his first two children. Andrew Chantry and Artoria Frasier Pilsudski had made it very clear that they were coming, and their younger siblings had only been prevented by the fact that one of the requirements to join the force going to Britain was having completed all seven years of Magical Self-Defense class. He wasn't too worried about them. After all, their mother had taught them, graded them harder than anyone else, and they were still in the top 5% of their class.

Okay, the private tutoring sessions he'd been giving the kids since they were eight had helped them along a bit. But he'd done it for their friends, too. No child would go into the world unprepared if he had anything to say about it.

But. Still. They were his kids. So he was at least a little worried. Battle was a chancy business.

"They'll be fine, sir," Hardee said quietly, as though he could read William's mind. "I still owe you and the others for what you did at Ilvermorney. My word on it."

That was reassuring. Still. This was the kind of thing that eventually led to new old families being established. That...was very much something he wanted to avoid.

"Treat them like anyone else under your command, Hardee," William forced the words from his throat. "Understood?"

"Yes sir. I will."

William turned around and looked back to the east. Young Potter was leading this battle, technically speaking, but Longbottom commanded the Hogwarts contingent, and had been the one to set up the plan. The man had a devious mind, for all that he was only Hardee's age.

He wasn't entirely sure why Shacklebolt wasn't leading the Brits, instead of acting as Potter's second. The man had a good head on his shoulders, and he'd led the defenders at the Battle of Hogwarts. Maybe retirement had just agreed with him that much?

No matter. What mattered was...ah. There. A white shape in the darkness, coming his way. As it came closer, it resolved itself into Ginevra Potter's patronus.

"They come as we thought they would. Be ready for the signal."

Then it vanished.

There were times he really wished they could figure out a way to make radios work reliably when they were around magic. Thomas Kovacs had done some work in Afghanistan when a Pashtun wizard had decided to go after some Americans who had killed his no-Maj cousin when he took some potshots at them, and according to him they speeded up communication considerably. And you could actually have a conversation.

However, at least for today, Patroni would be good enough.

And...there they were, riding through the sky like they owned it. Three hundred of them, and he suspected at least a sixth of them were exiles.

He shrugged. If he had the chance, he'd say the same thing to them that he said to Tempest Jemisin at the end of their fight in Sweetwater. "You are no longer my countryman."

In its own way, that day had been as important as Ilvermorney. Now it was time for another like it.

"Draw," he said quietly, and matched action to words as he drew his rifle from its sheath. The old AR-10 had gone through a lot of mags since the battle of Ilvermorney, and by now it was nearly all replacement parts, but there was no weapon he'd rather have with him.

He heard the soft rattles as those around him did the same, and slid their wands wherever they carried them when going into battle. There were some who didn't carry a gun at all as part of their equipment, and while William understood the sentiments behind it, they weren't ones he shared in the least.

He waited for the signal for them to move, and then he saw the spellfire as the Durmstrangers made contact with the Brits.

"Move!" He snapped out, and two hundred wizards and witches surged forward from the clouds that had hidden them. Well, the illusions of clouds that had hidden them, built on the actual clouds of the rainstorm that the Brits had magiced up, with little difficulty—it was springtime, after all.

There really wasn't much subtlety with this plan, either. Oh, he wasn't leading his entire force in one packed mass—that would be stupid—but the inverted echelon formation they were in would make his intentions obvious to a blind man. He intended to hit the Durmstrangers in the flank and roll them up, while anyone who tried to run would have to run a gauntlet of bullets and spells.

And, since with his troops added to the fray the defenders would have nearly four hundred fighters between them, unless the Durmstrangers had gone utterly suicidal they would start running the moment they noticed them, which was sort of the point. However, he wanted his attack to be noticed only when brooms started getting emptied.

Two hundred yards.

"Fire."

The ones with rifles opened up first, punching out semiautomatic fire as fast as they could bring the sights back on target, which was usually nearly instantaneous. The snipers, who were flying in back of and higher than the main formations, began picking off people who seemed to be leaders. Then, as the range dropped to fifty yards, those with shotguns added their close-range lethality to the fray, and everyone started to use their wands.

William nearly gasped as the entire right flank of the Durmstrangers ceased to exist within about fifteen seconds.

Oh, it wasn't annihilated. Not everyone hit their targets. More than one Durmstranger was hit by multiple Americans. But the survivors were a dazed, shattered two dozen or so out of a hundred, and they would be easy pickings if they stood and fought.

Unsurprisingly, they turned and ran, going through the rear of the center formation, which had had enough time to re-orient and disperse out, which meant that when William opened fire and the others joined him only about a quarter went down.

That was still enough to cause them to run like hell was on their heels, which as far as they were concerned it basically was. He couldn't quite see it, but he knew that the left flank had figured out what was going on and was starting to run too.

Most of them would probably get away. The storm would serve to hide them as they scattered in their rout, and while neither his crew nor the Brits were exactly tired, given just how short the fighting had been, they weren't going to just scatter themselves and risk being caught in a thunderhead or by a group of Durmstrangers who'd managed to stick together somehow.

Which was why they'd deployed the contingent from the Beauxbatons countries on the line of retreat from the ridiculously obvious trap. And why they were pursuing so closely, to make sure that panic set in before they realized that they were cut off, and that there would be no retreat today.

The fleeing formations broke apart, and the Beauxbatons revealed themselves by coming out from behind the illusions that had concealed them, and for a moment everything stopped.

Then the Durmstrangers' cohesion shattered like a dropped porcelain vase as they all tried to find somewhere in the sky, anywhere, that didn't have enemies in it, and William threw back his head and howled in triumph.

"Hunt!" he called.

And so they did.

* * *

In the end, of course, they didn't catch them all. But William didn't think that more than a dozen got away. A few were taken prisoner, but very few—also perhaps a dozen.

As for the rest, they would need to send people to pick up the bodies from down below, if they didn't want the no-Majs asking awkward questions like "why are there more than two hundred dead bodies scattered over this area, and why do some of them have bullet holes in them and some of them don't? And why does it seem like they fell out of the sky? And what's this broom doing here?"

Right now, however, there was another decision that needed making. The four commanders—William, Longbottom, Francisco Cordoba, who led the Beauxbatons contingent and was the head of the Guardia Bruja, and Potter—floated over the battlefield, in silence. And no small amount of shock. Nothing like this had ever been seen in the wizarding world. Not for centuries.

Potter was especially shaken. William didn't blame him.

"How many did we lose?"

"Two dozen."

It had been split evenly, remarkably enough. While the Brits had taken the initial assault, it had been the Americans and Beauxbatons contingent who the Durmstrangers had tried to run through, lashing out as they went.

They'd mourn the dead later. Right now, there was a war to finish.

He wouldn't lie, he was worried about Potter. The youngster was a good man in a fight, but he had a martyr complex coming out his ears, and ordering other people to die was anathema to him—and William knew that if they attacked Durmstrang itself, more of their people would die.

Before they could begin to speak, he held up a hand. "I know what you're going to say, Neville," he said as he looked at Longbottom. "You're going to tell me that we need to push on and take Durmstrang. Right?"

"Well—yeah, Harry."

"And you're worried that I won't tell you to do it, because I won't have more people dying because of something I told them to do."

"Well...yeah."

Potter smiled wanly. "Do you know why I went to go face Voldemort, Neville? It was because you were all dying, and I couldn't join you. Not while there were still Horcruxes to hunt. But this time...I can join you." He looked at them. "Send the young and injured to collect the dead. The rest of us fly to Durmstrang."

Well. That had been simpler than he had expected.

As it turned out, so was getting to Durmstrang. Instead of having to fly all the way to Scandinavia, they only had to fly to London. Minister Weasley had gotten on the horn and notified the Radet of the attack. The head had immediately given permission for a retaliatory strike, though he had stopped short of offering assistance beyond transit rights.

From there, they went to Stockholm through the Ministry's portkey connection to the headquarters of the Radet vor Magikern. Since there were six hundred people going through and only five could go at a time, everyone had the opportunity to get some shut-eye.

Well, except for the four commanders. They were trying to figure out how they were going to attack Durmstrang. Fortunately, William and Cordoba had made such plans awhile ago, and had brought them along. Unsurprisingly, neither Longbottom nor Potter had made such, but that was why he and Cordoba had brought the maps that he'd based the plans on.

They'd started planning the moment they made it to Stockholm. Ideally, they would have taken more time for this, but if they could hit Durmstrang before the survivors reached it they'd lose fewer people.

Ironing out the basics of the plan hadn't taken long. They'd come in from all directions, take control of the top of the school, and then blast their way down through it until they reached the bottom. It wasn't subtle, but they all agreed that subtle could go by the wayside.

The only real point of contention, however, was over who was going to lead the attack.

"No, you are not going to be leading the charge, Harry!" Longbottom snapped. "If for no other reason than because if you die I'm going to have to get myself killed, because Ginny'll hunt me down and Bat-Bogey Hex me until I finally decide to off myself."

"Damn it, Neville!" Potter replied heatedly. "I am _not _going to hang back out of harm's way! I am joining this attack, and that is final."

Longbottom crossed his arms and sat back, frustrated. "See if you can talk some sense into him," he muttered over at the other two.

William looked over at Cordoba, who nodded to him. Let the English-speaker handle this, even if he is...American was what the Spaniard seemed to say, and he turned back to Potter.

"Having you in front at the beginning is a very bad idea," he said flatly. "We have some idea of what defenses Durmstrang has, but we know we don't know all of them."

"However, once we clear out the outer defenses and actually have people on the ground there," he continued, "there's less of a risk of there being something unexpected. At that point, it's room clearance. And who knows, maybe even a climactic duel between someone and that piece of garbage Tiso."

Everyone wanted a piece of Vojtech Tiso, the current headmaster of Durmstrang after Victor Karkaroff's mysterious death a few years after Hogwarts and Ilvermorney. Based on what they'd gotten out of the survivors, he'd been the one coordinating Durmstang's involvement in the troubles in America and Britain. William wanted his scalp.

"And also, at that point who's in command is irrelevant. It'll be a dozen little battles. If you want to lead us into the bowels of Durmstrang, I have no objection to you doing so."

Longbottom gave him a somewhat betrayed look, but Potter nodded. "That makes sense. I agree."

Longbottom nearly choked.

* * *

As it happened, they got to Durmstrang just as the beaten, tired out by hours of flying survivors from the force that tried to attack Hogwarts made it there, and went in hard on their heels.

Securing the top of the castle took less than a minute.

Securing the rest of the castle took considerably longer than that.

And it was kind of a nightmare. Every wizard school had heavy magical defenses. Durmstrang's had been set up by wizards who had no qualms about using the Dark Arts in them. Poisons abounded. Twisted creatures came out of the walls. Floors crumbled away to reveal pits full of spikes covered in nameless substances and ceilings collapsed in order to drop piles of dangerous magical trash.

There were only two reasons that this didn't result in massive casualties: there were four hundred attackers and they weren't in a hurry. They took the corridors slow, sometimes barely moving a hundred feet in an hour, the traps were sown so thickly. But move forward they did, and as they did they also accounted for the few surviving Durmstrangers. William thought that it was a good thing that the school year was over.

But, after nearly twelve hours of painstaking work, it was nearly done. The headmaster's quarters and office were the most heavily defended part of the castle, unsurprisingly, and the attackers had managed to clear out the catacombs below the castle before they made it halfway up the hall to the door.

It was also where the last Durmstrangers were holed up, including Tiso, according to one defender who'd decided to surrender, and had given them some very important information.

As it happened, the final trap was set in the door itself. If it was forced in any way, it would set off an extremely powerful Fiendfyre spell that would consume the whole hallway and everyone and everything inside it. However, there was one problem with Fiendfyre.

It was well-nigh impossible to control besides the initial point-and-shoot. And it did not react well to being balked. At all.

He and his had brought enough explosives to break the back of a battleship—well, perhaps just a cruiser.

In the end, William Kovacs was the one who went and put the explosives on the door, all of which were being prevented from detonating by magic. It was a dangerous job, but he'd volunteered for it. Meanwhile, he, Longbottom, and Cordoba started setting up a barrier that, when activated, would prevent any magic from crossing it.

It wasn't an especially intricate plan, but it didn't have to be.

Kovacs was finished before the barrier was, which meant that they could start things as soon as they were ready. When Longbottom activated the barrier, the magic that had been keeping the explosives placed on the door from detonating was cut off.

The door vanished in a cloud of splinters that were consumed in the next instant by a rush of sentient flames. Sentient flames that roared outward, ready to consume all in their path...until they slammed into an invisible curving wall that sent them back towards where they'd come from, and the only way for them to go was back through the door and into the headmaster's quarters.

Even through the roar of the flames, the screams were quite audible. William had a hard time caring. The only ones left in there had been the real diehards—the ones who'd tried to turn Ilvermorney into a charnel house. Now they were gone.

He hoped that there would be something left to identify.

* * *

Six hours later, he stood in the blasted ruin that had once been the Durmstrang Courtyard, holding his wife's hand. Andrew and Artoria were right next to them, as everyone who had been assigned cleanup duty had come here the moment they were done. Hardee was there as well, with an anticipatory look on his face, one William was sure he bore.

This wasn't what any of them, or most of the Americans, wanted. It was only a matter of time before the No-Majs found them and would be able to break through their illusions and such. When that day happened, his people would be outnumbered thousands to one. They needed to be unified when that happened.

Better yet, they needed to come out of hiding themselves, instead of being dragged out unwillingly. But that would have to wait for a time. This was only the first step, he knew.

Hinojosa stood next to Hermione Weasley, who held a parchment in her hand and had a grimly determined look on her face. Her reaction on seeing the wreck of Durmstrang had been...interesting. She'd not been broken up over it, exactly, but she hadn't been as pleased as he'd expected her to be.

Then again, she did have a reputation for being a massive bookworm. Blowing up a school was probably sacrilege to her. Then he winced. The library had been blown to flinders by one of the defenders.

Truth be told, considering that Durmstrang had actually taught the Dark Arts, it was probably for the best, but still. A lot of those books had been irreplaceable, and a lot of knowledge had been lost.

He sighed. More than a few lives, too. Only one of the attackers had died, a young Spaniard named Quixote, but only two Durmstrangers had lived long enough to surrender. All of the others had died, and they'd confirmed nearly all of them.

He rather wished that they'd confirmed all of them instead of nearly all of them, but even if two or three had survived, Durmstrang was done, and the pureblood and magical supremacy movements in Europe with it.

Which was the other part of the reason for the Alliance. China and India still didn't care. But if they decided that they did care...well. Emigration from those countries was more frequent now among no-Maj-borns, but either alone had more people than Magical North America and Europe combined.

Together...well. If they allied, would be a very bad day.

Cordoba stepped out of the crowd, then, and stood beside Weasley and Hinojosa. Then the German, Johan Ritter, and the Radet's head, Astrid Trondheim.

His eyes went wide as others stepped out of the crowd. The head of government for nearly every magical country in Europe was here, it seemed like. They must have done some planning while he and the others were tearing down Durmstrang.

They gathered together, fifteen strong, and for a moment the courtyard was silent and still. Then Weasley unrolled the parchment she held and placed it on the table. Despite the wind, it didn't move.

William smiled. Sticking charms tended to do that.

Then Weasley spoke. "For the second time, I find myself standing in a ruined school. And I find that I like it little better than the first time I did."

She looked around. "I know it is also the second time that President Hinojosa has done so. And he likes it little better than I do.

"This," she continued, "is a treaty of alliance, between all of us. A pledge to defend each other, in time of need, from any attack launched upon any of us. And any wizarding government may join it. On two conditions."

There was no hesitation. "First, that no person possessed of magical talent will be prevented from learning to use it. And second, that no child possessing magical talent shall be removed from their parents because they lack it."

For a moment, all was frozen.

William blinked. That clause was a direct middle finger to the Brahmins and the Mandarins—though the Chinese belief in ancestor worship always made him wonder why they did that. And he knew that everyone there knew it.

And they didn't care.

And neither did he.

The cheering started a second later. He never was sure whether he or his wife joined in first.

No, this wasn't what his people needed. But it was a good start.

**A/N: And that's it for American Front. Hope you enjoyed it. **


End file.
